Machiavelli and Us [Paperback]

Louis Althusser (Author), François Matheron (Editor), Gregory Elliott (Translator), Francois Matheron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2001

'An explosive expression of the vision of revolutionary materialism...'—Antonio Negri

Though only appearing as an occasional reference in the Marxist philosopher's oeuvre, Machiavelli was an unseen constant presence. Together with Spinoza and Marx, Machiavelli was a veritable Althusserian passion. Machiavelli and Us reveals why, and will be welcomed for the light it sheds on the richly complex thought of its author.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Althusser, poised between modernism and postmodernism, meets Machiavelli, poised between the Middle Ages and modernity ... An explosive expression of the vision of revolutionary materialism: the coalescence of materialism and the phenomenon of singularity. (Antonio Negri )

This is a fascinating and original work that provides a new perspective on the equally enigmatic figures of Althusser and Machiavelli.
(The Front Table )

About the Author

Louis Althusser was born in Algeria in 1918 and died in France in 1990. He taught philosophy for many years at the Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris, and was a leading intellectual in the French Communist Party. His books include For Marx; Reading Capital (with Etienne Balibar); Essays in Ideology; Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx; Machiavelli and Us; and The Spectre of Hegel.

Gregory Elliott is a member of the editorial collective of Radical Philosophy and author of Althusser: The Detour of Theory and Labourism and the English Genius: The Strange Decay of Labour England?.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Verso (April 12, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859842828
• ISBN-13: 978-1859842829
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,746,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Althusser's best book, and the best book on Machiavelli, October 21, 2005

By 

Dave Death (McLaren Vale, SA, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Machiavelli and Us (Paperback)

This book is a must read for anyone interested in Machiavelli, Lenin, Gramsci, or Althusser. Althusser reads Machiavelli's *philosophy* - which, for Althusser, is always the intervention of politics into theory - and specifies what exactly made Machiavelli such a solitary, singular thinker. For those of you who associate Althusser with structuralism, you are in for a big shock. It is here that Althusser develops his 'aleatory materialism' and theory of the conjuncture to the utmost, reading Machiavelli together with Epicurus to delineate Machiavelli's materialist position in philosophy as a thinker of the conjuncture. But he also specifies the necessity for an encounter to endure, and it is here perhaps that a non-structuralist, non-economistic reworking of his theses on the 'last instance' and 'reproduction' in the famous ISAs paper might become possible.

In this book Althusser argues that there is no contradiction between the Prince and the Discourses, that Machiavelli is neither monarchist or republican but instead that he observes power from the perspective of the people, and that Machiavelli's problem is the problem of the constitution of Italy as a national-popular state out of the 'void' of the then-existing mess that was Italy's political landscape. His analysis of Machiavelli's concepts of fortuna and virtu is very important, and too nuanced to summarise here. It's only 100 pages of main text plus endnotes, then another essay 'Machiavelli's Solitude' (an earlier version of which appeared in the journal _Economy and Society_ in 1988) which is 15 pages, and the translator Gregory Elliott provides an worthwhile introduction of 9 pages + notes, where, among other things, Elliott contrasts Althusser's book with that of Skinner for the benefit of English readers.

SO - it's short, but well worth reading. Keep an eye out for the next volume of Althusser writings, due out soon, which contains other important writings from the period 1978-86 (including much more in the way of insights into the development of Althusser's materialism), including 'Marx in his limits', where Althusser develops his theory of the state and provides a strident critique of Gramscian discourse on hegemony and the state that informed the political practice of the Eurocommunists.

3 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars virtues of "Machiavelli and Us", July 17, 2001

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"jenee98" (South Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Machiavelli and Us (Hardcover)

I think that ¡°Machiavelli & Us¡± displays three kinds of virtues (not virtu in the book). The first, it¡¯s an answer about arguments and complaints that existing works of Louis Althusser¡¯s have not sufficiently reflected the emphasis Althusser himself put in his lectures. The second, this book suggests that transition of Marxism is not in search of alternative philosophical materialism, but in political practice with and in the working masses, refuting the Bolshevik implicitness of Gopal Balakrishnan, Greogory Elliot. The three, though we've not have close analysis and study of this book yet, it is certain that except early works as like ¡°For Marx¡±; ¡°Reading Capital¡± he had not given a full page of his work to like this coherent matter, putting this book in an interesting position. And most of all we can see this book reflecting political, philosophical change or transition of him is passing through familiar or unfamiliar words, themes, and thesis. All of these kinds of virtues invite a dead warrior to make us practice, and struggle.