This volume contains the political writings of Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653), an acute defender of absolute
monarchy and perhaps the most important patriarchal political theorist of the seventeenth century. The recent explosion
of interest in women's history and the history of the family has greatly enhanced the audience for Filmer's
work, and in this new edition Johann Sommerville provides accurate and accessible texts of his principal
writings, accompanied by all the standard series features, including a concise introduction, chronology, guide
to further reading and notes on Filmer's own text.