Books like Great political thinkers by William Ebenstein

Thomas Hobbes' influential work on social contract and political governance from 1651, addressing the structure of government and society as the way to prevent civil war and chaos.

John Stuart Mill’s classic 1859 essay, *On Liberty*, argues for individual freedom, democratic representation, and women’s rights within a utilitarian framework, shaping modern debates on liberty, civil rights, and political philosophy.

A two-volume study of political thought from the late thirteenth to the end of the sixteenth century, the decisive period of transition from medieval to modern political theory. The work is intended to be both an introduction to the period for students, and a presentation and justification of a particular approach to the interpretation of historical texts. Volume One deals with the Renaissance, Volume Two with the Age of Reformation. Quentin Skinner gives an outline account of all the principal texts of the period, discussing in turn the chief political writings of Dante, Marsiglio, Bartolus, Machiavelli, Erasmus and more, Luther and Calvin, Bodin and the Calvinist revolutionaries. But he also examines a very large number of lesser writers in order to explain the general social and intellectual context in which these leading theorists worked. He thus presents the history not as a procession of 'classic texts' but are more readily intelligible. He traces by this means the gradual emergence of the vocabulary of modern political thought, and in particular the crucial concept of the State. -- Publisher description

King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India presents an English translation of Kautilya's Arthasastra (AS.) along with detailed endnotes. When it was discovered around 1905, the AS. was described as perhaps the most precious work in the whole range of Sanskrit literature, an assessment that still rings true. Patrick Olivelle's new translation of this significant text, the first in close to half a century, takes into account a number of important advances in our knowledge of the texts, inscriptions, and archeological and art historical remains from the period in Indian history to which the AS. belongs. The AS. is what we would today call a scientific treatise. It codifies a body of knowledge handed down in expert traditions and is specifically interested in two things: first, how a king can expand his territory, keep enemies at bay, enhance his external power, and amass riches; second, how a king can best organize his state bureaucracy to consolidate his internal power, to suppress internal enemies, to expand the economy, to enhance his treasury through taxes, duties, and entrepreneurial activities, to keep law and order, and to settle disputes among his subjects. The AS. stands alone: there is nothing like it before and there is nothing like it after.