Biographical note

Donald A. Cress is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin–Parkside. His translations include Rousseau's The Basic Political Writings, Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, and Descartes' Discourse on Method—all published by Hackett.

David Wootton is Anniversary Professor of History, University of York. His translations of Machiavelli: Selected Political Writings, More's Utopia, and Voltaire's Candide—as well as his Divine Right and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England, his edition of Locke: Political Writings, and his The Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers—are also available from Hackett. He is also the author of Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison (Harvard University Press).