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Philosophical preoccupation with moral, legal, and hypothetical problems have led us to neglect those practical (or strategic) dimensions of Leviathan in which Hobbes confronts the problems of how order can actually be politically created from disorder and how, once begun, the germ of order can be perpetuated in stable political society. The possibilities of political creation reside in the idea of confederation and, importantly, in men's fundamental manipulability. The consequent maintenance of political order depends, for Hobbes, on creating conditions in which, without excessive or unnecessary resort to force, men can be made to forebear conflict among themselves and resistance to government. Those conditions, as in the case of political creation, depend upon appearances, illusion, and political manipulation.

Machiavelli's Prince has been interpreted and appraised from a wide range of points of view. Attitudes have run all the way from unqualified admiration for the Princes compelling frankness and republican patriotism to shock and hatred for its obvious moral relativism. The Prince has been condemned as a piece of political opportunism, an expression of the philosophy of the antichrist, and a contributing factor to the political morality of both Napoleon and Hitler. On the other hand, it has in modern times been praised as a forthright assessment of the morality of sixteenth-century Italian political life and/or the first manifestation of a new science of politics.

Because of heightened involvement of the United States in world affairs during the period between the Spanish-American War and World War I, American political thought expanded to include the dimension of international politics. In the process three different styles of thought emerged. Each style was equipped with its characteristic view of the nature of international politics, the nature and role of war, views of human nature, a method of social and political analysis, and proposals for dealing with the problems of world politics.