Quentin Skinner
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By: Oxford University Press, USA
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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( M ) -> Machiavelli, Niccolo
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
A superb brief introduction to a misunderstood thinker 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.
I first read this short introduction to Machiavelli about ten years ago, when it was a volume in the Oxford University Press Past Masters series. It has been resurrected in updated form to be a part of their Very Brief Introductions series. The changes are all to the good. Whereas the Past Masters edition was printed on cheap paper with a tendency to age and yellow, the new edition features updated bibliography, the addition of graphics, reset font, a sturdier binding and paper cover, and a much higher grade of paper. In everyway, this new volume is an improvement over the earlier edition.Content wise, you couldn't ask for a better brief introduction to Machiavelli. Skinner is one of the great historians of political thought of this generation, and probably the finest. His knowledge of 16th and 17th century political thought is difficult to rival. He covers Machiavelli's political thought in loosely chronological fashion, blending the highpoints of his biography with longer expositions of his three great political works. There are four chapters in all. The first details some of Machiavelli's experience working as a diplomat for the Florentine republic. It was by observing many of the political leaders he dealt with that he gathered the ideas for the composition by which he is best known today, THE PRINCE. Chapter Two provides a brief sketch of the contents and argument of THE PRINCE, and it alone would justify the purchase of the book. Luckily, the book contains more, including an exposition of his DISCOURSES ON LIVY in Chapter Three. This chapter (and Machiavelli's book) should be of great interest to any American interested in the founding of the United States, because many of the Founders considered themselves students of Machiavelli, though not of THE PRINCE, but the discourses. Most of the Founders had a fascination with the Roman Republic, and in founding the United States sought to emulate many of its features. Much of their exposure to the Roman Republic came via Livy and through Machiavelli's book, which covers the first ten books of Livy's history of Rome. The final chapter covers the history of Florence that the Medici family commissioned him to write, a history that expresses a deeply ambivalent opinion about the value of principalities over republics.
Skinner's book will not substitute for the reading of Machiavelli, and it certainly cannot constitute an in depth study of his work. But it makes an absolutely ideal overview to anyone about to read any of Machiavelli's works.
Editorial Review:
Niccolo Machiavelli taught that political leaders must be prepared to do evil that good may come of it, and his name has been a byword ever since for duplicity and immorality. Is his sinister reputation deserved? In answering this question Quentin Skinner focuses on three major works, The Prince, the Discourses, and The History of Florence, and distills from them an introduction to Machiavelli of exemplary clarity.
