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Title: Discourses by Niccolo Machiavelli, Bernard Crick, Leslie J. Walker ISBN: 0-14-044428-9 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: May, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Intellectually Enriching
Comment: Although much can be learned from modern writers about the history of Italy, the sentiments and evaluations of politicians and historians of this period (sixteenth century) are unique to their day. It is wonderful to read Machiavelli's evaluation of Livy's historical accounts and see why certain actions which would be shunned by modern writers made perfect sense then. Such accounts help the reader not to be trapped in his own day's thought processes, but have an expanded scope of history. Very enlightening!
Rating: 5
Summary: The King is Dead!
Comment: These are Machiavelli's essays on the lessons to be learned from Titus Livy's first ten books about Roman history. Though other works existed, Machiavelli chose Livy's histories because Livy was an eye witness to the fall of the Roman Republic.
Machiavelli's purpose for writing The Discourses can be summed up in one line: "The multitude is wiser and more constant than a prince." More to-the-point, however is the later phraise: "A corrupt and disorderly multitude can be spoken to by some worthy person and can easily be brought around to the right way, but a bad prince cannot be spoken to by anyone, and the only remedy for his case is COLD STEEL."
With every stroke of his pen, Machiavelli sets out to prove the superiority of a republican form of government. He values freedom of the citizenry above all else, and provides princes everywhere with grizzly tales of what happens when it is restricted. His influence on the Founding Fathers, and particularly on the works of Paine and Jefferson, is evident. Our current leaders would find themselves more secure if they stuck to Machiavelli's principles.
Rating: 4
Summary: Historical Analysis
Comment: Machiavelli's second most famous work, this book deals with the author's commentary on the way the Roman Republic was run and why it was so successful in expanding its borders. He stresses the reason it was so stable and successful was the solid core of reasonable laws, a standing army of professional soldiers and plunder/tribute from surrounding countries.
He illustrates the ways in which the good ideas of the ancient Romans could be applied in contemporary politics (it was written during the XVI century).
Unlike the Prince, which propandasizes his personal political opinions and describes the ideal ruler, the Discourses deal mainly with mundane economic and social issues, with little personal opinion.
It is filled with anecdotes about the lives of interesting or exceptional Romans and is not that difficult a read at all. In reading it for my first-year history class, I found it was a very good summary of the complicated life of the Roman Republic (it deals very little with the time of the Empire).
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Title: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli ISBN: 0553212788 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
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Title: The Art of War by Niccolò Machiavelli, Ellis Farneworth ISBN: 030681076X Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 04 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Leviathan (Penguin Classics) by Thomas Hobbes, T. Hobbs, C. B. MacPherson ISBN: 0140431950 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: June, 1982 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Mandragola by Niccolo Machiavelli, Mera J. Flaumenhaft ISBN: 0917974573 Publisher: Waveland Press Pub. Date: February, 1981 List Price(USD): $6.25 |
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Title: Renaissance Florence: The Invention of a New Art by A. Richard Turner, Richard A. Turner ISBN: 0131833537 Publisher: Prentice Hall Press Pub. Date: March, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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