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Niccolo Machiavelli
See Also: Gracian's
Worldly Wisdom - Sun Tzu's The Art of War
When Lorenzo de' Medici seized
control of the Florentine Republic in 1512, he summarily fired the Secretary to the Second
Chancery of the Signoria and set in motion a fundamental change in the way we think about
politics. The person who held the aforementioned office with the tongue-twisting
title was none other than Niccolò Machiavelli, who, suddenly finding himself out of a job
after 14 years of patriotic service, followed the career trajectory of many modern
politicians into punditry. Unable to become an on-air political analyst for a
television network, he only wrote a book. But what a book The Prince is.
Its
essential contribution to modern political thought lies in Machiavelli's assertion of the
then revolutionary idea that theological and moral imperatives have no place in the
political arena. "It must be understood," Machiavelli avers, "that a prince
... cannot observe all of those virtues for which men are reputed good, because it is
often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness,
against religion, in order to preserve the state." With just a little
imagination, readers can discern parallels between a 16th-century principality and a
20th-century presidency. --Tim Hogan
Widely read and highly esteemed throughout the 16th century, this major
work was a favorite of Frederick the Great, Napoleon,
Saint-Cyr, and Clausewitz. In it, Machiavelli makes liberal use of the theories of
the Romans while advancing the revolutionary idea that politics and war constitute a kind
of functional unity.
See Also: Gracian's Worldly
Wisdom - Sun Tzu's The Art of War
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