In a detailed but accessible introduction, Patrick Riley outlines the fundamental themes in Leibniz's work, particularly his concepts of justice and social responsibility, and assesses the important differences between Leibniz and his English contemporaries Hobbes and Locke.

Prefae to the second edition; Abbreviations; Introduction; Part I. On Justice and Natural Law: 1. Meditation on the common concept of justice (c. 1702-3); 2. Opinion on the principles of Pufendorf (1706); Part II. On Social Life, Enlightenment and the Rule of Princes: 3. On natural law; 4. Notes on social life; 5. Felicity (c. 1694-8?); 6. Portrait of the prince (1679); 7. Memoir for enlightened persons of good intention (mid-1690s); Part IIII. On State-Sovereignty and Hobbesian Ideas: 8. Caesarinus Fürstenerius (De Suprematu Principium Germaniae) (1677); Part IV. On the Defense of Hapsburg Europe against France: 9. Mars Christianissumus (most Christian war-god) (1683); 10. Manifesto for the defense of the Rights of Charles III (1703); Part V. On International Relations and International Law: 11. Codex Iuris Gentium (Prefatio) (1693); 12. On the works of the Abbé de St Pierre (1715), observations on the Abbé's Project for Perpetual Peace (1715), Letter II to Grimarest (1712); Part VI. Political Letters: 13. Excerpts from letters to Landgraf Ernst of Hesse-Rheinfels , Bousset and Thomas Burnett, two letters to Landgraf Ernst of Hesse-Rheinfels (1683-91), two letters to Bousset concerning the reunification of Christendom (1692-9), three letters to Thomas Burnett (1699-1712); 14. Judgement of the works of the Earl of Shaftesbury (1712); Part VII. Sovereignty and Dignity: Unpublished Manuscripts, 1695-1714: 15. An unpublished manuscript of Leibniz on the allegiance due to sovereign powers (1695); 16. Leibniz' unpublished remarks on Abbé Bucquoi: divinity and sovereignty (1711); 17. An unpublished lecture by Leibniz on the Greeks as founders of rational theology: its relation to his 'Universal Jurisprudence' (1714); Critical Bibliography; Index.