Includes index. Papers from a conference held 6-7 December 2013 at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Prince.
Contents:
What does a "conjuncture-embedded" reflection mean? The legacy of Althusser's Machiavelli to contemporary political theory / Marie Gaille. Machiavellian politics beyond Machiavelli. Machiavelli on necessity / Harvey C. Mansfield -- Machiavelli on good and evil: the problem of dirty hands revisited / Giovanni Giorgini -- Machiavelli and the critics of Rome: rereading Discourses I.4 / Gabriele Pedulla -- Machiavelli, "ancient theology," and the problem of civil religion / Miguel Vatter -- The Prince and the politics of necessity. Machiavelli and the misunderstanding of princely virtu / Quentin Skinner -- The necessity to be not-good: Machiavelli's two realisms / Erica Benner -- Loyalty in adversity / Stephen Holmes -- Machiavelli and the modern tyrant / Paul A. Rahe -- Class struggle, financial power, and extraordinary authority in the republic. Machiavelli and the Gracchi: Republican liberty and class conflict / Benedetto Fontana -- Machiavelli, the republic, and the financial crisis / Jeremie Barthas -- Extraordinary accidents in the life of republics: Machiavelli and dictatorial authority / Marco Geuna -- Machiavellian politics beyond Machiavelli. The reception of Machiavelli in contemporary Republicanism: some ambiguities and paradoxes / Jean-Fabien Spitz -- On the myth of the conservative turn in Machiavelli's Florentine histories / John P. McCormick -- Political imagination, conflict, and democracy: Machiavelli's republican realism / Luca Baccelli -- "Armi proprie e improprie" in the work of some representative Italian readers of the twentieth century / Michele Battini -- What does a "conjuncture-embedded" reflection mean? The legacy of Althusser's Machiavelli to contemporary political theory / Marie Gaille.
Summary:
More than five hundred years after Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince', his landmark treatise on the pragmatic application of power remains a pivot point for debates on political thought. While scholars continue to investigate interpretations of 'The Prince' in different contexts throughout history, from the Renaissance to the Risorgimento and Italian unification, other fruitful lines of research explore how Machiavelli's ideas about power and leadership can further our understanding of contemporary political circumstances. This book has brought together the most recent research on 'The Prince', with contributions from many of the leading scholars of Machiavelli, including Quentin Skinner, Harvey Mansfield, Erica Benner, John McCormick, and Giovanni Giorgini. Organized into four sections, the book focuses first on Machiavelli's place in the history of political thought: Is he the last of the ancients or the creator of a new, distinctly modern conception of politics? And what might the answer to this question reveal about the impact of these disparate traditions on the founding of modern political philosophy? The second section contrasts current understandings of Machiavelli's view of virtues in 'The Prince'. The relationship between political leaders, popular power, and liberty is another perennial problem in studies of Machiavelli, and the third section develops several claims about that relationship. Finally, the fourth section explores the legacy of Machiavelli within the republican tradition of political thought and his relevance to enduring political issues.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.