The relationship between the state and the people is always problematic. Some consider it a contract that entails insurmountable problems, both within and outside its framework of power. Ultimately, who rules whom? In this book, the leading British political scientist examines, through 12 works marking corresponding milestones in the history of ideas from the 17th century to the present day, a series of philosophical perceptions about the relationship between rulers and the ruled. At the starting point, we find Thomas Hobbes, who in 1651 in Leviathan compares the state to the biblical monster of the same name. Runciman thoroughly presents the positions, both positive and negative, expressed regarding the state by his theorists, from Wollstonecraft to MacKinnon and from Marx to Fukuyama, in the four centuries that have elapsed since the publication of Leviathan. He shows how this particular work influenced world-changing events, such as the American Revolution, radical movements like the second wave of feminism, and major texts like the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, Gandhi's Autonomous India, and Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Analyzing the most important ideas that have shaped political thought over the last 500 years, Runciman shows how various crises, revolutions, and disasters have opened new paths in political thought. And how we today, by looking back at the history of ideas, can better understand the world we live in. "Every reader who wonders at the inertia, almost paralysis, that characterizes democratic governance in many countries will find it particularly interesting."      New York Review of Books "Runciman has the intellectual maturity to tackle his subject without evasions. This book forever changes the way we view the evening news!"      Australian "Incredibly timely, written with exceptional style and clarity."      Irish Times