Machiavelli is popularly known as a teacher of tyrants, a key proponent of the unscrupulous “Machiavellian” politics laid down in his landmark political treatise The Prince. Others cite the Discourses on Livy to argue that Machiavelli is actually a passionate advocate of republican politics who saw the need for occasional harsh measures to maintain political order. Which best characterizes the teachings of the prolific Italian philosopher? With Machiavelli’s Politics, Catherine H. Zuckert turns this question on its head with a major reinterpretation of Machiavelli’s prose works that reveals a surprisingly cohesive view of politics. Starting with Machiavelli’s two major political works, Zuckert persuasively shows that the moral revolution Machiavelli sets out in The Prince lays the foundation for the new form of democratic republic he proposes in the Discourses. Distrusting ambitious politicians to serve the public interest of their own accord, Machiavelli sought to persuade them in The Prince that the best way to achieve their own ambitions was to secure the desires and ambitions of their subjects and fellow citizens. In the Discourses, he then describes the types of laws and institutions that would balance the conflict between the two in a way that would secure the liberty of most, if not all. In the second half of her book, Zuckert places selected later works—La Mandragola, The Art of War, The Life of Castruccio Castracani, Clizia, and Florentine Histories—under scrutiny, showing how Machiavelli further developed certain aspects of his thought in these works. In The Art of War, for example, he explains more concretely how and to what extent the principles of organization he advanced in The Prince and the Discourses ought to be applied in modern circumstances. Because human beings act primarily on passions, Machiavelli attempts to show readers what those passions are and how they can be guided to have productive rather than destructive results. A stunning and ambitious analysis, Machiavelli’s Politics brilliantly shows how many conflicting perspectives do inform Machiavelli’s teachings, but that one needs to consider all of his works in order to understand how they cohere into a unified political view. This is a magisterial work that cannot be ignored if a comprehensive understanding of the philosopher is to be obtained.

"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." The Prince, written by Niccolò Machiavelli, is a groundbreaking work in the genre of political philosophy, first published in 1532. It offers a direct and unflinching examination of power and leadership, challenging conventional notions of morality and ethics in governance. This work will leave you questioning the true nature of authority and political strategy. Machiavelli's prose captures the very essence of human ambition, forcing readers to grapple with the harsh realities of leadership. This is not just a historical treatise, but a blueprint for navigating the political power structures of any era. If you're seeking a deeper understanding of political leadership and the dynamics of influence, this book is for you. Sneak Peek "Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved." In The Prince, Machiavelli draws on historical examples and his own diplomatic experience to lay out a stark vision of what it takes to seize and maintain power. From the ruthlessness of Cesare Borgia to the political maneuvering of Italian city-states, Machiavelli outlines how a leader must be prepared to act against virtue when necessary. Every decision is a gamble, and success depends on mastering the balance between cunning and force. Synopsis The story of The Prince delves into the often brutal realities of ruling. Machiavelli provides rulers with a pragmatic guide for gaining and sustaining power, asserting that the ends justify the means. The book is not just a reflection on how power was wielded in Renaissance Italy but a timeless manual that offers insight into political consulting, political history, and current political issues. Its relevance has endured for centuries, influencing leaders and thinkers alike. Machiavelli emphasizes that effective rulers must learn how to adapt, deceive, and act decisively in pursuit of their goals. This stunning, classic literature reprint of The Prince offers unaltered preservation of the original text, providing you with an authentic experience as Machiavelli intended. It's an ideal gift for anyone passionate about political science books or those eager to dive into the intricacies of power and leadership. Add this thought-provoking masterpiece to your collection, or give it to a loved one who enjoys the best political books. The Prince is more than just a book – it's a legacy. Grab Your Copy Now and get ready to command power like a true Prince. Title Details Original 1532 text Political Philosophy Historical Context

Professor Skinner presents a lucid analysis of Machiavelli's text as a response to the world of Florentine politics.

Before Machiavelli, political freedom was approached as a problem of the best distribution of the functions of ruler and ruled. Machiavelli changed the terms of freedom, requiring that its discourse address the demand for no-rule or non-domination. Political freedom would then develop only through a strategy of antagonism to every form of legitimate domination. This leads to the emergence of modern political life: any institution that wishes to rule legitimately must simultaneously be inscribed with its immanent critique and imminent subversion. For Machiavelli, the possibility of instituting the political form is conditioned by the possibility of changing it in an event of political revolution. This book shows Machiavelli as a philosopher of the modern condition. For him, politics exists in the absence of those absolute moral standards that are called upon to legitimate the domination of man over man. If this understanding lies open to relativism and historicism, it does so in order to render effective the project of reinventing the sense of human freedom. Machiavelli's legacy to modernity is the recognition of an irreconcilable tension between the demands of freedom and the imperatives of morality.

Throughout his life, Niccolò Machiavelli was deeply invested in Florentine culture and politics. More than any other priority, his overriding central concerns, informed by his understanding of his city's history, were the present and future strength and independence of Florence. This volume highlights and explores this underappreciated aspect of Machiavelli's intellectual preoccupations. Transcending a narrow emphasis on his two most famous works of political thought, The Prince and the Discourses on Livy, Mark Jurdjevic and Meredith K. Ray instead present a wide sample of the many genres in which he wrote—not only political theory but also letters, poetry, plays, comedy, and, most substantially, history. Throughout his writing, the city of Florence was at the same time his principal subject and his principal context. Florentine culture and history structured his mental landscape, determined his idiom, underpinned his politics, and endowed everything he wrote with urgency and purpose. The Florentine particulars in Machiavelli's writing reveal aspects of his psyche, politics, and life that are little known outside of specialist circles—particularly his optimism and idealism, his warmth and humor, his capacity for affection and loyalty, and his stubborn, enduring republicanism. Machiavelli: Political, Historical, and Literary Writings has been carefully curated to reveal those crucial but lesser known aspects of Machiavelli's thought and to show how his major arguments evolved within a dynamic Florentine setting.

A new reading of Machiavelli’s major works that demonstrates how he has been previously misread To what extent was Niccolò Machiavelli a “Machiavellian”? Was he an amoral adviser of tyranny or a stalwart partisan of liberty? A neutral technician of power politics or a devout Italian patriot? A reviver of pagan virtue or initiator of modern nihilism? Reading Machiavelli answers these questions through original interpretations of Machiavelli’s three major political works—The Prince, Discourses, and Florentine Histories—and demonstrates that a radically democratic populism seeded the Florentine’s scandalous writings. John McCormick challenges the misguided understandings of Machiavelli set forth by prominent thinkers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and representatives of the Straussian and Cambridge schools, and he emphasizes the fundamental, often unacknowledged elements of a vibrant Machiavellian politics. Advancing fresh readings of Machiavelli’s work, this book presents a new outlook on how politics should be conceptualized and practiced.

Two late-developing nations, Japan and Italy, similarly obsessed with achieving modernity and with joining the ranks of the great powers, have traveled parallel courses with very different national identities. In this audacious book about leadership and historical choices, Richard J. Samuels emphasizes the role of human ingenuity in political change. He draws on interviews and archival research in a fascinating series of paired biographies of political and business leaders from Italy and Japan. Beginning with the founding of modern nation-states after the Meiji Restoration and the Risorgimento, Samuels traces the developmental dynamic in both countries through the failure of early liberalism, the coming of fascism, imperial adventures, defeat in wartime, and reconstruction as American allies. Highlights of Machiavelli's Children include new accounts of the making of postwar Japanese politics—using American money and Manchukuo connections—and of the collapse of Italian political parties in the Clean Hands (Mani Pulite) scandal.The author also tells the more recent stories of Umberto Bossi's regional experiment, the Lega Nord, the different choices made by Italian and Japanese communist party leaders after the collapse of the USSR, and the leadership of Silvio Berlusconi and Ishihara Shintar on the contemporary right in each country.

Louis Althusser s interpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli has never really been studied in any detail as an analysis of political action and intervention. The same is also true for Althusser s notion of aleatory materialism. Instead, these have conventionally been studied from the viewpoint of a philosophical perspective in which politics is excluded. The objective of the present book thus runs against many of the prevailing views on Althusser. Here the emphasis is placed on Althusser's advancement of a theory of materialist politics. The main argument put forward is that, for Althusser, it was essential to reflect on how the conjunctural understanding of history and reality could offer a theoretical starting point for a subversive political strategy.

Niccolò Machiavelli may not have been a cynical realist as he is often portrayed. On the contrary, this book argues that he precociously possessed the characteristics of an impassioned, sometimes misguided idealist, obsessed with the idea of Italian unification, but blinded to the practicalities of attaining that goal. William J. Landon suggests that these characteristics may help to explain his appeal to Italy's «Risorgimento» founders. This interdisciplinary volume, which also contains the first translation of a «Discourse or Dialogue Concerning our Language» since 1961, works well as a core text, or as a complement to courses in Renaissance history, literature or political science.

In Machiavelli’s Art of Politics Alejandro Bárcenas offers a reexamination of Niccolò Machiavelli’s political thought in order to propose a concise and historically accurate portrayal of his ideas and intellectual context. This study provides a nuanced view of the complexities of Machiavelli’s thought by analyzing his classical background, taking into particular consideration the influence of Xenophon, and his view of the ideal ruler as someone who creates the conditions for a flourishing human life. In addition, Bárcenas explains why Machiavelli defends a republican political order that encourages citizens to live according to their own laws while serving a common good and revises his legacy through the writings of Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin and Maurizio Viroli.