This text argues that traditional social contract theory does not account for the continuing existence of the non-social community and its relation to the social community in the body politic. It aims to establish links between the levels of consciousness, society, civilization, and barbarism.
The New Leviathan, originally published in 1942, a few months before the author's death, is the book which R. G. Collingwood chose to write in preference to completing his life's work on the philosophy of history. It was a reaction to the Second World War and the threat which Nazism and Fascism constituted to civilization. The book draws upon many years of work in moral and political philosophy and attempts to establish the multiple and complex connections between the levels of consciousness, society, civilization, and barbarism.
'Throughout, the 'Introduction' displays Boucher's usual mastery of the material, serious and probing approach, and judicious appraisal.'
