Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction

By Quentin Skinner

Book Overview

Machiavelli taught that political leaders must be prepared to do evil that good may come of it. Offering the first brief introduction to Machiavelli's thought to appear in twenty-five years, Skinner focuses on his three major works, The Prince, Discourses, and The History of Florence. He discusses the influence of Roman moral thought on Machiavelli, concentrating on the extent to which Machiavelli's teachings represent a reaction against this tradition. Placing Machiavelli in the proper social and intellectual context, Skinner reveals the extraordinary originality of his attack on the prevailing moral and political assumptions of his age.

About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192854070
• ISBN13: 9780192854070
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 4.5" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

One of the very best of the Very Short Introduction series

This short book (100 pages of text followed by index, suggestions for further reading, etc.) is a paragon of the genre. Oxford originally published it to great acclaim back in 1981 as part of another series and it has now been absorbed by the VSI series. First, a little about VSI books. They have several advantages over other series like the Idiot's guides. For me, the great advantage is their physical size. They are slightly bigger than 4" x6" cards. They fit comfortably into my jeans and can be pulled out at opportune moments for some quiet reflection on some of the greatest thinkers and issues in our tradition. Skinner's book exemplifies the strengths of the series. He is well recognized as an expert on early modern political theory. He is also well know as someone who has developed and disseminated very influential ideas on historical method. He is a very careful and measured scholar and a very good writer. His book focuses mostly on The Prince and The Discourses. It can serve as a preparation for reading those works or as something to read afterward to make sure you caught the major themes. I cannot emphasize enough that it does not replace reading Machiavelli himself. There are only 5 to 10 of the great Western philosophers who were great stylists. Plato and Nietzsche, of course. I would argue that Hobbes is very readable as well. After that, it gets pretty debatable. But Machiavelli is one of the great exceptions. He writes beautifully and subtly. Skinner's book also needs to be seen as a presentation of a definite interpretation of Machiavelli. There are others, like that of Leo Strauss, who come to different ideas of what Machiavelli was about. I lean more toward a Straussian reading of Machiavelli but I learned a lot from my reading of Skinner. For one thing, Skinner presents The Prince as very much an extended and brutal rebuttal of Cicero's De Officis (On Duties). If you would like to read a more Straussian viewpoint, try Strauss' Thoughts on Machiavelli or Harvey Mansfield's Machiavelli's Virtue. If you want a biography, seek out Roberto Ridolfi's Life of Niccolo Machiavelli. But if you want something you can stick in your pocket and read now and then as a way of figuring out if you want to get to know Niccolo then Skinner's book is for you. Really, as a short summary of an interpretation of one thinker's thought, it cannot be better done than in this book.

A beautifully clear written summary of the life and work

This is one of the best written volumes in 'The Past Masters' series. Skinner tells the story of Machiavelli's life, and places the major works at the heart of the story. Machiavelli, the high- ranking diplomat, and representative of his native Florence does not write the great political works out of the air abstractly. It is through his diplomatic experience, through his witnessing the city- state wars in the Italy of his time that he comes to the startling political conclusions that he does. Skinner shows how only when Machiavelli had to retire against his will from the active life did he turn to write his masterpiece ' The Prince'. 'The Prince ' teaches the Machiavellan lessons about how the ruler must be swift in decision, ruthless in action , inspiring fear and respect in his subjects. It teaches those lessons of the meaning of ' virtu' of how it is ' the brave to whom Fortune is given'. And how the ruler must shun mercenaries, and foreign dependancies built a defense force of his own if he is to rule securely. Skinner describes Machiavelli's other important writings that too are devoted to questions of ruling. Even Machiavelli's last work ' On the Florentine Republic' considers the mistakes made by rulers which cost the city its independence- and what the true way toward ruling should be. Skinner does not sentimentalize Machiavelli and he shows how private immorality is sanctioned by him if it may lead to what for him is of supreme importance, the public good. This is an extremely good introduction to one of the world's most important political thinkers.

A superb brief introduction to a misunderstood thinker

I first read this short introduction to Machiavelli about ten years ago, when it was a volume in the Oxford University Press Past Masters series. It has been resurrected in updated form to be a part of their Very Brief Introductions series. The changes are all to the good. Whereas the Past Masters edition was printed on cheap paper with a tendency to age and yellow, the new edition features updated bibliography, the addition of graphics, reset font, a sturdier binding and paper cover, and a much higher grade of paper. In everyway, this new volume is an improvement over the earlier edition.Content wise, you couldn't ask for a better brief introduction to Machiavelli. Skinner is one of the great historians of political thought of this generation, and probably the finest. His knowledge of 16th and 17th century political thought is difficult to rival. He covers Machiavelli's political thought in loosely chronological fashion, blending the highpoints of his biography with longer expositions of his three great political works. There are four chapters in all. The first details some of Machiavelli's experience working as a diplomat for the Florentine republic. It was by observing many of the political leaders he dealt with that he gathered the ideas for the composition by which he is best known today, THE PRINCE. Chapter Two provides a brief sketch of the contents and argument of THE PRINCE, and it alone would justify the purchase of the book. Luckily, the book contains more, including an exposition of his DISCOURSES ON LIVY in Chapter Three. This chapter (and Machiavelli's book) should be of great interest to any American interested in the founding of the United States, because many of the Founders considered themselves students of Machiavelli, though not of THE PRINCE, but the discourses. Most of the Founders had a fascination with the Roman Republic, and in founding the United States sought to emulate many of its features. Much of their exposure to the Roman Republic came via Livy and through Machiavelli's book, which covers the first ten books of Livy's history of Rome. The final chapter covers the history of Florence that the Medici family commissioned him to write, a history that expresses a deeply ambivalent opinion about the value of principalities over republics. Skinner's book will not substitute for the reading of Machiavelli, and it certainly cannot constitute an in depth study of his work. But it makes an absolutely ideal overview to anyone about to read any of Machiavelli's works.