the works of machiavelli niccolò machiavelli

The panelists are Canadian scholar and politician Michael Ignatieff, who as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada was leader of the opposition from 2008 to 2011 and now teaches at Harvard and the University of Toronto Edward Muir, a Northwestern University history professor, who has written widely about the Renaissance and James Johnson (right), a CAS associate professor of history and author of two prize-winning books, Listening in Paris: A Cultural History and Venice Incognito: Masks in the Serene Republic.īU Today spoke with Johnson, recipient of a 1996 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching and former CAS assistant dean and director of the Core Curriculum, about why Machiavelli’s masterwork continues to resonate. To celebrate the book’s 500th anniversary (it was written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after the author’s death), the College of Arts & Sciences history department is hosting a special event, Machiavelli’s The Prince after 500 Years, at 7 p.m. Critics have long debated whether The Prince, which famously argues that the ends-no matter how immoral-justify the means for preserving political authority, was written as a satire, or as British philosopher and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell once said, as “a handbook for gangsters.” While Machiavelli’s intent is unknown, this much is indisputable: the book continues to be a searing meditation on the means some people use to get and maintain power.Īmong the precepts espoused by Machiavelli: leaders should always mask their true intentions, avoid inconsistency, and frequently “act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion, in order to preserve the state.” His name has become synonymous with cunning tyrants. The slender political treatise is one of the most influential and controversial books published in Western literature.

His explanation was that while Machiavelli “is frequently dismissed today as an amoral cynic who supposedly considered the end to justify the means,” he is, in fact, “a crystal-clear realist who understands the limits and uses of power.” Diamond, whose books include Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, said that what continues to make The Prince compelling reading for today’s political leaders is Machiavelli’s insistence “that we are not helpless at the hands of bad luck.” His answer? Niccoló Machiavelli’s The Prince, written 500 years ago.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jared Diamond was asked which book he would require President Obama to read if he could. This portrait of the author, by Santi di Tito, hangs in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy.

Twitter Facebook Niccoló Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513, but it wasn’t published until 1532, five years after his death.

The works of machiavelli niccolò machiavelli