The nation of the state : an introduction to political theory.

Tis book was first published in Italian in 1962. I have been planning to rewrite it ever since, with a view to publishing an English edition which might be definitive. Here, at long last, is the fruit of my labours.

Miss Margaret Carlyle greatly eased my task by providing me with a literal translation of the original text and by revising my English. It gives me particular pleasure that her name should once again be associated with one of my books. The Notion of the State would probably never have been written had its author not had the good fortune of sitting at her father's feet forty years ago in those unforgettable tutorials at 29 Holywell.

Nor would it have been written but for the stimulus of teaching my own subject again after resigning the chair of Italian Studies at Oxford. I therefore wish to record a special debt of gratitude to my old Faculty in Turin for welcoming me back after a long ab sence, as well as to the Department of Philosophy and to the Law School at Yale for entrusting me year after year with a course on political and legal philosophy which proved to be one of the most enjoyable experiences of my career as a teacher.

I should find it hard to say which of these three different set tings British, Italian, American-has had most influence on the views set forth in these pages. There is so much that is personal in them, and what little scholarship there is is of secondary import ance. If there is one point which I am particularly anxious to emphasize, it is that The Notion of the State is not a treatise of political science, nor a history of political thought, nor an exercise in linguistic analysis. The only purpose of this book is to defend a certain type of approach to political theory.