Introduction -- Classical Greek political philosophy: beginnings -- Plato: government for corrupted intellects -- Aristotle: politics as the master art -- Cicero: The cosmic significance of politics -- Christianity: a political religion? -- Augustine, Aquinas, and Marsilius of Padua: politics for saints, sinners, and heretics -- Hobbes and Locke: seventeenth-century contractarianism -- Rousseau and Marx: reaction to Bourgeois-liberalism -- Mill and Rawls: liberalism ascendant?