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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A rigorous examination of Machiavelli's "numerous antinomies", November 12, 2007
This review is from: Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power (Eminent Lives) (Hardcover)
This is one of several volumes in the HarperCollins Eminent Lives series. Each offers a concise rather than comprehensive, much less definitive biography. However, just as Al Hirschfeld's illustrations of various celebrities capture their defining physical characteristics, the authors of books in this series focus on the defining influences and developments during the lives and careers of their respective subjects. In this instance, Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-1527).
Obviously, this is not a definitive biography nor did Ross King intend it to be. However, for most readers, it provides about all of the information they need to understand the meaning and significance of this excerpt from the final chapter in King's biography: "The key to some of the ambiguities may lie in the nature of the man himself. Machiavelli's numerous undertakings - diplomat, playwright, poet, historian, political theorist, farmer, military engineer, militia captain - make him, like his friend Leonardo, a true Renaissance man. Yet, like Leonardo, who denounced the 'beastly madness' of war while devising ingenious and deadly weapons, Machiavelli is awash in paradoxes and inconsistencies...Probably his greatest contradiction was that he understood better than anyone else in the sixteenth century how to seize and maintain political power - and yet, deprived of power himself in 1512, he spent many long years in the political wilderness, making a series of bungling and fruitless attempts to regain his position."
With remarkable precision, concision, and eloquence, King examines not only Machiavelli's life and career but also the cultural, political, and religious environment in which he was so actively involved more than 500 years ago. The Prince (or The Ruler) is Machiavelli's most famous work but was not published until four years after his death, in 1531, when Pope Clement VII granted that permission to Antonio Blado. It was published together with Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy and The History of Florence. The Art of War (1520) was the only one of Machiavelli's works to be published in his lifetime. King notes that The Prince circulated in manuscript and earned for Machiavelli a certain notoriety. "'Everyone hated him because of The Prince,' one commentator observed around the time of Machiavelli's death. 'The good thought him sinful, the wicked thought him even more wicked or more capable than themselves, so that all hated him.' This was no doubt an exaggeration: Machiavelli was far better known as a popular dramatist and controversial state functionary than as the author of a tract on statecraft. Still, in the decades that followed, the hatred did indeed begin to curdle."
King points out that a well-worn edition accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to the Battle of Waterloo and Adolph Hitler kept a copy on his bedside table. Today, many people who have never read The Prince and know little (if anything) about its author do not hesitate to invoke his name -- or at least apply it as an adjective -- to describe or repudiate any political maneuvering they perceive to be devious. However, King asserts, rather than having been uniformly demonized or unfairly misunderstood "as a preacher of the straightforward message of evil," Machiavelli has been "conscripted into service" by adherents of all manner of political causes because his thought is strangely malleable to any number of diametrically opposing ideologies and approaches."
As I hope these brief remarks indicate, I learned a great deal about Machiavelli, a man of "numerous antimonies," that I did not know before. I am grateful to Ross King for that but also for all that I learned about the extraordinarily interesting age in which Machiavelli lived, more than 500 years ago. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that King "brings it to life." No one could. But he does present material with the skills and eloquence of a storyteller...and in seamless combination with the skills of a cultural anthropologist.
Bravo!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fine work for what it is, November 15, 2008
This review is from: Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power (Eminent Lives) (Hardcover)
If you want a detailed analysis of Machiavelli and his work, this is not the book for you. If you want a brief, accessible introduction to the man and his life, then this will be a nice addition to your library. Personally, I tend to like detailed biographies that place the person in his or her context. But I also appreciate works such as this.
The narrative begins with Niccolo Machiavelli, age only 29 (young for the role he would play), becoming a player in Florence's political apparatus. He was a humanist, and had a good education when young. He came from a good family, albeit one that was not wealthy. Shortly after his accession to a good post, he became Second Chancellor. As a part of his position, he also was assigned diplomatic tasks.
He maintained this position until Florence was taken under the authority of the Medici family. In the process, Machiavelli lost his position (and may have been tortured in the process). The book portrays well the frustration Machiavelli felt, as he did many things to ingratiate himself with the powerful Medici family. Indeed, his famous "The Prince" was dedicated to a Medici. After, essentially, realizing that he would not soon regain his position, he began writing, whether histories, political analyses, or plays. Ironically, one of his plays was performed for the Pope (a Medici) and well appreciated by him.
The book continues by depicting his life, including a last moment opportunity to play the role of diplomat--with the backing of, you guessed it, the Medici family. One thing the book does nicely, even though it is rather superficial, is to demonstrate the crazy quilt pattern of shifting alliances. On his personal life, he was quite a pain to his wife (fidelity was not an attribute he displayed) and family, being gone, while a diplomat, a great deal of the time.
The last chapter does a serviceable job of putting Machiavelli in a larger context. The book is well written and well serves the purpose of an accessible, non-academic view of this famous philosopher, writer, and diplomat.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What's Good Enough for Tupac Shakur Is Good Enough for Me, August 14, 2007
This review is from: Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power (Eminent Lives) (Hardcover)
I was pleased to see that the redoubtable Ross King (of Brunelleschi's Dome fame) was recruited for this book. For readers unfamiliar with the "Eminent Lives" series, the idea is to pair distinguished authors with interesting subjects, the result being "short biographies perfect for an age short on time."
How very 21st century.
King does an excellent job of putting Niccolo Machiavelli's life and times into perspective. Machiavelli was much more of a man of action than I had realized; he interspersed his peripatetic diplomacy for Florence with an obsession with raising and training a citizen militia. And Machiavelli was hardly the black-hearted villain so often characterized. His greatest character fault may have been obsequiousness, as epitomized by his dedicating The Prince to Lorenzo Medici (a syphilitic lout who apparently never read the book at all.)
If I had any cavil about Ross King's book, it is that The Prince is not analyzed in the kind of detail that I hoped it would be. (One supposes a short biography designed for an age short on time has its limitations.) I intend to now follow the example of rapper Tupac Shakur, who read The Prince while imprisoned in 1995, and subsequently gave himself the moniker "Makaveli." (How much cooler than "Puffy" is that?)
Also recommended: Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives)
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