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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Lord Leverhulme
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(William Lever, 1851–1925, bt 1911, viscount 1922) Industrialist who from modest beginnings, manufacturing bars of Sunlight soap in 1885 in a Warrington factory, built up the firm which developed into *Unilever. In 1888 he moved his factory to *Port Sunlight. The Leverhulme Trust, established by him, is one of Britain's largest charitable foundations, specializing in research and education.
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Leviathan (1651) Treatise by Thomas *Hobbes on the nature of human society, which he presents as a vast living organism, comparing it to the world's largest creature – the biblical leviathan, or whale. Hobbes's thesis, in his widely remembered phrase, is that in a state of nature the life of man is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short', a chaos of rival self-interests. The only solution, for both the individual and the common good, is a contract of subordination to a supreme authority, whether it be 'one Man or ... one Assembly of men'. The alternatives were diplomatic in a book published during the *Commonwealth and just two years after the execution of *Charles I.
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