The Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought series professes to offer ‘critical examinations of the work of major political philosophers and social theorists’ with the aim of providing ‘a clear, accessible, historically informed account of each thinker’s work, focusing on a reassessment of their ideas and arguments’. The primary audience is students of political thought and history approaching a major figure for the first time, looking to gain an understanding of their big ideas and why they might still have something to contribute ‘to current debates in political philosophy and social theory’. After a dip in popularity in the last century, Cicero is once more widely considered to be a major political philosopher. In the fields of political theory and intellectual history there is considerable and growing scholarly interest in distinctively Roman modes of political thinking and Cicero’s enduring impact on the traditions of republicanism and liberalism. But Cicero poses an unusual challenge for a book of this nature, which must take into account students approaching him and his writings for the first time, perhaps without much or any grounding in classics or ancient history. Cicero did not do political philosophy in a vacuum, and something has to be said about Roman political ideology, the wide range of earlier Greek thinkers with whom Cicero engaged, Roman political history and Cicero’s active role within it, Roman law, the importance of persuasive oratory, and the list goes on. A decision also has to be made about how to deal with Cicero’s mammoth literary legacy – numerous speeches of different kinds, almost a thousand letters, various works of rhetoric and philosophy, and even poetry – not to mention that for around 2,000 years Cicero has been a canonical figure in the Western humanistic tradition. Things can quickly feel dizzying. Fortunately, we are in safe hands. In this eminently readable book Malcolm Schofield provides a stimulating and elegantly written overview of Cicero’s major political ideas and arguments and his enduring contribution to political philosophy.