The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition [Paperback]

John Greville Agard Pocock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0691114722 | ISBN-13: 978-0691114729 | Edition: Revised

The Machiavellian Moment is a classic study of the consequences for modern historical and social consciousness of the ideal of the classical republic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy. J.G.A. Pocock suggests that Machiavelli's prime emphasis was on the moment in which the republic confronts the problem of its own instability in time, and which he calls the "Machiavellian moment."

After examining this problem in the thought of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Giannotti, Pocock turns to the revival of republican thought in Puritan England and in Revolutionary and Federalist America. He argues that the American Revolution can be considered the last great act of civic humanism of the Renaissance. He relates the origins of modern historicism to the clash between civic, Christian, and commercial values in the thought of the eighteenth century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In analyzing the history of consciousness as explicated through philosophers, political theorists, historians, theologians, lawyers, and prophets, [this book] presents a new interpretation of wide-ranging problems. It should be of great value to scholars in many disciplines concerned with the history of ideas."

Review

The Machiavellian Moment raised a thousand issues, settled two or three, and gave historians and philosophers a generation's work. It is a must-read and a must-have. (Philip Pettit, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton University ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 648 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; Revised edition (January 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691114722
• ISBN-13: 978-0691114729
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant August 15, 2006

By R. Albin TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

This is a remarkable, though not easy to digest, book. Pocock traces the development of modern republican political theory from its birth in Renaissance Florence to the end of the 18th century. This book incorporates both broad structural analysis of the the unfolding of this tradition and a detailed readings of the major and quite a few minor contributors to this tradition. Pocock starts out by demonstrating that the Christian-Medieval tradition of western Europe was not equipped with the conceptual apparatus to develop a theory of republican governance. Intellectuals in Renaissance Florence then had to look back to the Classical writings of Aristotle, the historian Polybius, and other classical writers, to develop a system of thought that could justify and guide the life of city-states in Italy. An underlying theme that Pocock stresses throughout the book is the struggle of intellectuals trying to develop systems of government that would produce fulfillment and stability but constantly confronted with the insecurity and unstable nature of the real world. Another recurrent theme is the pressure to articulate republican theory constantly being confronted with new circumstances. The development of republican theory, particularly by the brilliant Machiavelli and Guicciardini, being prompted by the specific historical circumstances faced by the Florentine state. Machiavelli is really the pivotal figure, developing political theory unmoored from the divine. After tracing the development of Florentine theory, Pocock moves onto the development of republican theory in the very different circumstances of 17th century Britain. Here, theory had to accomodate not the problems of a city-state but an entire nation and changed significantly under the stimulus of the English Civil War.... Pocock presents James Harrington as the key modifier and transmitter of the Machiavellian tradition and who in particular emphasized the role of property as the basis for republican stability. Pocock then moves on to the challenges of the 18th century with the confrontation of republican theory with an emerging commercial and imperial society. The final chapter deals with what happened when the American revolutionaries attempted to construct to a new society based on classical republican ideas. The failure of these ideas prompted the development of a new version of republican theory. Pocock's close analysis of individual thinkers is sometimes tough reading but ultimately rewarding. The analyses of individual thinkers are punctuated by general analyses that are invariably insightful and sometimes brilliant. Among other things, this is a basic book for understanding the intellectual background of the American Revolution and many important topics in modern history. Read more ›

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Birth and growth of the modern republic-- in a nutshell February 20, 2005

By Bo K.

Format:Paperback

This is the best book that I have found to date that traces the development of the theory of the modern "res public" from Machiavelli and the Florentine city-state, to the Glorious revolution in 17th century England, to the foundation of the American republic.

The Machiavellian moment comes when the founders of a state realize that "virtue" can be dependent upon "contingency" at some point in the life of every government, and that the res public is the best method known to humans to manage both to the benefit of the citizens/body politic; "virtue" refers to the energy that the humanist writers of the period demanded of any honest citizen, in the vita activa; contingency is the weakness that enters into any human-created activity, given the incomplete nature of our knowledge.

This book is clearly written, and not difficult to digest if you come to it with some preliminary understanding, say, from quentin skinner's foundations of modern political thought.

I am finishing richard tuck's philosophy and government 1572-1651 which purports to analyze the development of the period's political thought up to Hobbes' publication of Leviathan in 1651, but it just isn't as rich or satisfying a work as this.

If you want to know why Machiavelli is so important, and understand his influence on the two greatest exemplars of republican thought since his time, this is without a doubt the book to read.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth the time invested in reading! January 18, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Pocock has written a profoundly exhaustive study of Florentine republican theory in the time of Machiavelli, the Republic, and the Medici restoration. He painstakingly makes his argument that the roots of Machiavelli's thought are to be found more in the metaphysical world view of Thomism than in the teleological taxonomy of Aristotle. He goes on to argue that the aim of Machiavelli, and contemporaries such as Guicciardini, is the attainment of stability in secular time through the proper extension of civic rights. He then goes on to claim that this aim is followed by the architects of Eighteenth Century Anglo-American republicanism. This strong intepretation of Anglo-American republicanism may understate the impact of, for example, the Miltonian view of individual capacity for moral and political reasoning. However, it certainly is expounded well enough here to hold its own in any debate. In passing, Pocock makes liberal use of untranslated Italian text. While this is useful to the Renaissance specialist, it would be helpful had he included translations for those of us who bring no Italian to the table.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting ideas sabotaged by convoluted academic prose November 21, 2012

By C. Ackerman

Format:Paperback

This is really a book just for grad students interested in political theory. No one else would have the time to slog through it. Its central ideas about the significance of Florentine republican thought on British and later American thinkers is interesting (and Pocock does an especially good job of giving a sense of how medieval thought was unsatisfactory for Italian Renaissance republicans and how the events of the 1640s created an intellectual crisis). But the author does his best to ruin his accomplishments with horrifically bad prose. He defends his style in the preening 2003 afterword claiming that the complexity of ideas means that clarifying is very different from simplifying, but that only demonstrates his fundamental naivete about communication. As you read it, half your brain will be thinking about what he's saying and the other half will be in editorial mode coming up with better ways of putting it. He reminds me of the kind of professor that grad students have a condescending affection for: "He's absolutely brilliant, but, man, you just have to smile and patiently nod your head while struggles to get those thoughts out. The way to survive his seminars is with a lot of coffee. Lots of coffee, my friend."

Furthermore, he doesn't really line up his evidence well for his ultimate claim that Locke's influence has been overrated. For him to make that case, he's got to do more than just say, "We're going to set Locke aside and see if we need him. . . Guess what? We never did." Instead of talking about free floating ideas, he ought to give a sense of how Machiavelli's ideas made it into the English language (when was it translated, where, etc.) instead of simply saying that certain thinkers' ideas are Machiavellian.

So should you read it?... If you're a professional academic who deals with American or European politics or political history, it might be worth the slog. Otherwise, by his baroque word choice, Pocock makes it clear that he doesn't want you to. Read more ›