Machiavelli: On Politics and Power

Description

Two classic works of political philosophy, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince and Discourses on Livy provide rulers with a how-to guide for governing. Jon Lee Anderson's provocative introduction explores the lasting effects of Macchiavelli's controversial politics of governance in the tumultuous twenty-first century geopolitical landscape. Widely held as one of the first works of modern political philosophy, The Prince is a practical guide for ruling (or a satirical guide on how not to rule). Machiavelli prefaces each chapter with a brief letter addressed to Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of Florence, to whom he also dedicates the book, both admonishing and praising him for his governance. In simple prose and straightforward logic, Machiavelli takes on topics of power, politics, and war that continue to bear contemporary pertinence. The Prince offers moderns readers a first-hand look at the causes and ramifications of poor governing in sixteenth century Italy, which are still applicable over five centuries later. Machiavelli's extreme views on the separation of politics and ethics in governance has frightening parallels to a disconcerting trend in current global politics.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527) was an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher and writer of the Renaissance period. As a young Florentine envoy to the courts of France and the Italian principalities, he witnessed firsthand how people could be united under a powerful leader. This vision motivated his writing on acquiring and maintaining political power. Jon Lee Anderson has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1998. He has covered numerous conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, reported frequently from Latin America and the Caribbean, and written profiles of Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He is the author of several books, including The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Guerillas: Journeys in the Insurgent World, and The Fall of Baghdad. Jon Lee Anderson ha sido redactor de planta de la revista The New Yorker desde 1998. Ha cubierto numerosos conflictos en Oriente Medio y Africa, ha publicado reportajes frecuentes sobre America Latina y el Caribe, y ha escrito perfiles de Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez y Gabriel Garcia Marquez, entre otros. Born in Mexico in 1958, Eko is an engraver and painter. His wood etchings, often erotic in nature and the focus of controversial discussion, are part of a broader tradition in Mexican folk art popularized by Jose Guadalupe Posada. He has collaborated on projects for The New York Times, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the Spanish daily El Pais, in addition to having published numerous books in Mexico and Spain.

"The staying power of The Prince comes from ... its insistence on the need for a clear-sighted appreciation of how men really are as distinct from the moralizing claptrap about how they ought to be." --Alan Ryan, author of On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present "It was Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, written in 1513, that first laid bare the moral world of politics and the gulf between private conscience and the demands of public action." --Michael Ignatieff, politician and historian