Machiavelli's Labyrinth

Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the most misunderstood political thinkers of all time. Subjected to caricature, condemned as an immoralist, and obscured beneath layers of scholarship, he has been imprisoned in a sort of intellectual labyrinth. J. Furman Daniel III and Brian A. Smith seek to lead Machiavelli out into the light of day. Neither the last pagan nor the first modern, Machiavelli sought to advise those who would lead in politics about the nature of power and its relationship to political life. Yet puzzles abound in his thought: He pursued what he saw as the deep wisdom and lost virtues of Rome, and so is often understood to have rejected Christianity entirely. Machiavelli counseled the necessity of certain kinds of immorality and so is understood to be a teacher of evil. Advocating for a martial patriotism at home and a clear-sighted ruthlessness abroad, scholars often cast him as an early realist or proto-nationalist. All of these views contain a partial truth, but obscure Machiavelli’s aims and intentions, keeping him hidden from public view, and depriving us of his very real insights into political life. This book aims to make Machiavelli’s work accessible by addressing common misconceptions, placing his work into context, and providing a pathway for applying his theories to the present day. Rather than being yet another dead end, we believe that this embrace of complexity and context leads to a better understanding of his works as well as a new means for applying his lessons to the present.