© Antonio Maria Crespi Castoldi
Niccolò 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.
This April, our virtual classics book club is reading Machiavelli’s The Prince and selections from Discourses on Livy, which offer an “astonishingly modern” take on a timeless question: how should a ruler be?
"It is in such murky waters that Machiavelli still swims, helping us out even now with the necessary language to rationalize the accidental civilian casualties caused when we use remote-controlled drones to assassinate suspected terrorists in foreign lands, not to mention the cumulative collateral damage of our recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria."
By Niccolò Machiavelli
Introduction by Jon Lee Anderson
Illustrations by Eko
Restless Classics
Restless Classics presents a trenchant new edition of Machiavelli’s most powerful works of political philosophy, including The Prince and selections from Discourses on Livy, introduced by New Yorker writer and biographer of Che Guevara Jon Lee Anderson.
Paperback • ISBN: 9781632062567
Publication date: Mar 23, 2021