Politics: start here

Social contract theory

Hobbes to Rawls: why should anyone obey the state?

Leviathan (chs. 13-30)
Thomas Hobbes
The original deal: order in exchange for obedience.
736 pp≈18 h●●● Demanding
Read this first: Chapters 13–30 are the political core.
Edition: Penguin Classics · ISBN 9780140431957
Get it at Bookshop.org (affiliate link) I've read this
Second Treatise of Government
John Locke
Rights, property and the right to rebel.
153 pp≈4 h●●○ Steady
Edition: Dover Publications · ISBN 9780486424644
Get it at Bookshop.org (affiliate link) I've read this
The Social Contract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The general will and popular sovereignty.
187 pp≈5 h●●○ Steady
Edition: Penguin Books · ISBN 9780140442014
Get it at Bookshop.org (affiliate link) I've read this
Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy
John Rawls
Rawls's own guided tour of the contract tradition.
Edition not yet verified; link opens a Bookshop search.
Get it at Bookshop.org (affiliate link) I've read this
A Theory of Justice
John Rawls
The contract reborn behind a veil of ignorance.
538 pp≈13 h●●● Demanding
Read this first: Chapter 1 and the 'original position' sections first.
Edition: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press · ISBN 9780674000780
Get it at Bookshop.org (affiliate link) I've read this

Sources: r1 · r3 · balliol