But don’t worry, he assured us. Anarchy can be tamed and peace established – if we all just agree to relinquish our liberty. To put ourselves, body and soul, into the hands of a solitary sovereign. He named this absolute ruler after a biblical sea monster: the Leviathan. Hobbes’ thinking provided the basic philosophical rationale for an argument that would be repeated thousands, nay, millions of times after him, by directors and dictators, governors and generals … ‘Give us power, or all is lost.’
