Behemoth (book) - Background

Background

Behemoth was written in 1668 as a follow-up to a previous and scandalous political work, Leviathan (1651). Leviathan is a representation of an ideal political world, and Behemoth has been considered to be a contrasting treatise on what happens when the very worst abuses of government come to pass. Hobbes applied his understanding of the science of human nature to explain why the English Civil War came to pass. He was able to do this because he "did not make an impassable gulf between his rational understanding on the one hand and the particular events which he witnessed, remembered, or heard about on the other". The book is written in the form of a discourse between two men. The first speaker, called only "A", is an eye witness and possible insider to the events of the English Civil War. The second speaker, referred to as "B", is a student aiming to understand the breakdown in the government of England at that time.

Hobbes was refused permission by King Charles II to publish Behemoth. While the king recognized the correctness of the account of events and issues, he was concerned that the book would not be well received. Charles withheld his permission to publish, in the hope that Hobbes would avoid further scandal, and perhaps see his reputation as a thinker restored.

The manuscript for Behemoth was pirated and printed in unauthorized editions in Europe during the 1670s and in a letter to his friend John Aubrey, Hobbes stated his disappointment with this turn of events. An official edition was released three years after Hobbes' death in 1679, by his literary agent William Crooke. According to Aloysius Martinich, "after its initial success the book was relatively unread and unstudied until there was a resurgence of interest in it in the last quarter of the twentieth century".

Behemoth is not entirely factual, accurate or literal in retelling of the events of the English Civil War but still has value that it has for students of the history of thought or revolution. As Royce MacGillivray puts it:

Hobbes instead is drawing on his memories of the events and on two other possible sources, both written by James Heath around 1663. These are A Brief Chronicle of all the Chief Actions and the expanded A Brief Chronicle of the Late Intestine Warr. It is possible they were simply used as prompts for Hobbes, already 80 years old when he wrote Behemoth. According to MacGillivray very little material from these sources found its way directly into the text.

The summation below is just that, a summation, and is only the most basic part of each section. No effort is made to correct any inconsistencies introduced into the discussion between the master and the student so that the information may be presented as it was written by Thomas Hobbes.