Quentin Skinner is one of the foremost historians in the world, and in Hobbes and Republican Liberty he offers a dazzling comparison of two rival theories about the nature of human liberty. The first originated in classical antiquity, and lay at the heart of the Roman republican tradition of public life. Thomas Hobbes was the most formidable enemy of this pattern of thought, and his successive attempts to discredit it constitute a truly epochal moment in the history of Anglophone political thought. Hobbes and Republican Liberty develops several of the themes announced by Quentin Skinner in his celebrated inaugural lecture on Liberty before Liberalism of 1997. Cogent, engaged, accessible, and indeed exhilarating, this new book will appeal to readers of history, politics, and philosophy at all levels from upper-undergraduate upwards, and provides an excellent introduction to the work of one of the most celebrated thinkers of our time.

本书作者昆廷•斯金纳毕业于剑桥大学。1978年出版《近代政治思想的基础》一书，出版后获得好评，被认为是思想史研究中的“斯金纳的革命”。同年，年仅38岁的昆廷•斯金纳担任剑桥大学教授。此后，斯金纳教授出版了《马基雅维里》、《霍布斯哲学中的理性和修辞》、《自由主义之前的自由》等。2002年，他又出版三卷本巨著《政治的识界》。因其卓越的学术贡献，斯金纳教授荣任为剑桥大学钦定近代史讲座教授。在国际学术界，作为思想史研究“剑桥学派”的代表性人物，昆廷•斯金纳被公认为一位著名的思想史家，也是一位思想家。 在目前西方学术界,对思想史特别是政治思想史的研究以斯金纳为代表的"剑桥学派"成为了主流,其在学术界的地位和影响,被芬兰学者帕罗内称之为思想史研究中的"斯金纳的革命 ”斯金纳目前是剑桥历史系教授、英国皇家科学院院士、剑桥学派的掌门人 ,是”剑桥三剑客”之一.