Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527)
For Le Brun, Sade's mission is to free us to face the facts of spontaneous, individual human desire and its fate in the world of nature. This drive to clarity makes him a worthy member of a tradition that includes Machiavelli, La Rochefoucauld, Nietzsche, Freud, Rimbaud, and the surrealists. We might also add Stanley Milgram, whose book Obedience to Authority shows how fragile is the veneer of enlightened morality in the life of everyday people. --Richard Crowder for amazon.com
Biography
Niccolò Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was a Florentine statesman and political philosopher. As a theorist, Machiavelli was the key figure in realistic political theory, crucial to European statecraft during the Renaissance. His two most famous books, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (Discourses on Livy) and Il Principe (The Prince), were written in the hopes of improving the conditions of the Northern Italian principalities, but became general handbooks for a new style in politics. The Prince, written to encourage the appearance of a political savior who would unify the corrupt city-states and fend off foreign conquest, advocated the theory that whatever was expedient was necessary—an early example of utilitarianism and realpolitik. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccolo_Machiavelli [Jul 2005]
Il Principe/The Prince (1513,1532) - Niccolo Machiavelli
- Il Principe/The Prince (1513,1532) - Niccolo Machiavelli [Amazon.com]
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 for Amazon.com