Government is often justified as legitimate on the grounds that it is based on the consent of the governed. In History of Political Thought II, “Legitimacy, Equality, and the Social Contract,” we examine the origins of this view, focusing our attention on canonical works in the social contract tradition, by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), David Hume (1711-1776), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In addition, in the early weeks of the course, we examine precursors to the social contract tradition, including works by John Calvin (1509-1564) and Jean Bodin (1530-1596). In the concluding weeks, we consider John Rawls’s recent return to the social contract tradition and Charles Mills’s critique of social contract theory. This course is the second in a three-semester sequence on the history of political thought. Students are encouraged but not required to take all three courses.