Hobbes and America: Exploring the Constitutional Foundations

This path-breaking study seriously shakes the credibility of the prevalent interpretations of American government and politics. It exposes the real American constitutional morality, one embodied in a code adhered to by those in political life.

Frank Coleman makes a persuasive case that the real roots of the American political system are in Hobbes, and not, as is usually thought, in Locke. He shows that a Hobbesian interpretation fits the transactional, bargaining, or conflict-management natu...