Thomas Hobbes (April 5, 1588–December 4, 1679) was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan set the agenda for much of subsequent Western political philosophy. Michael Oakeshott famously described it as ‘the greatest, perhaps the sole, masterpiece of political philosophy written in the English language.[1] Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, geometry, ethics, law, psychology general philosophy and what would now be called political science. His account of human nature as essentially self-centered, though a dark assessment, holds that people at their best can rise to self-interested cooperation.