John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (Book Review‪)‬

John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), xix + 476 PP. 1. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy presents a set of lectures written by John Rawls for his students at Harvard. They were part of Rawls's course in Political Philosophy, which covered, together with his own theory of justice, central works by Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, J.S. Mill, and Marx. The volume also includes lectures on Sidgwick and Butler and (in the Introduction) an interesting account of the role, authority, and audience of political philosophy. Rawls taught this class throughout his teaching career. He prepared a set of detailed and well-organized notes, which were continuously improved as Rawls's own ideas evolved. At the time of his death, the notes on Locke, Rousseau, Mill and Marx were quite complete and self-standing. The lectures on Hobbes and Hume, on the other hand, were completed on the basis of transcripts from Rawls's classes. The preparation of this volume was undertaken by Samuel Freeman, who was also a teaching assistant of Rawls. We must certainly be thankful to Freeman for the care and competence with which he put together this extraordinary volume.