īehemoth is not entirely factual, accurate or literal in retelling of the events of the English Civil War but still has value for students of the history of thought or revolution.

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'.

An official edition was released, three years after Hobbes' death in 1679, by his literary agent William Crooke. The manuscript for Behemoth was pirated and printed in unauthorised editions in Europe during the 1670s and in a letter to his friend John Aubrey, Hobbes stated his disappointment with this turn of events. Charles withheld his permission to publish, in the hope that Hobbes would avoid further scandal, and perhaps see his reputation as a thinker restored. While the king recognised the correctness of the account of events and issues, he was concerned that the book would not be well received. Hobbes was refused permission by King Charles II to publish Behemoth. The second speaker, referred to as 'B', is a student aiming to understand the breakdown in the government of England at that time. The first speaker, called only 'A', is an eyewitness and possible insider to the events of the English Civil War. The book is written in the form of a discourse between two men. 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'. Hobbes applied his understanding of the science of human nature to explain why the English Civil War came to pass. 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. Published posthumously in 1681, it was written in 1668, but remained unpublished at the request of Charles II of England.īehemoth was written in 1668 as a follow-up to a previous and scandalous political work, Leviathan (1651). Behemoth, full title Behemoth: the history of the causes of the civil wars of England, and of the counsels and artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1660, also known as The Long Parliament, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes discussing the English Civil War.

Book written by thomas hobbes