The Prince: A Historical Critique (Twaynes Masterwork Studies)
by Victor Anthony Rudowski
Category: Political Science

Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince belongs to a well-established literary genre of books offering advice to rulers that was popular throughout the Medieval and Renaissance eras. By virtue of the originality of his views Machiavelli is now regarded as one of the most controversial, enduring, and realistic political thinkers of all time. Machiavelli undertakes an empirical analysis of political activity, evaluating the quality of a leader on the effectiveness of his actions rather than on his adherence to idealistic moral standards. By dispensing with ethical considerations derived from classical philosophy and Christian theology, The Prince initiated a pragmatic mode of political discourse that is entirely independent of traditional moral authority. By the close of the sixteenth century, Machiavelli's ideas had crystallized into the doctrine of raison d'etat, according to which a ruler is permitted to act independently of ordinary moral codes whenever the interests of the state are at stake. Victor Anthony Rudowski's The Prince: A Historical Critique provides one of the most extensive historical analyses of the content and composition of this great work yet published. Demonstrating that contemporary opinion of Machiavelli has usually rested on interpretation of the final third of The Prince, Rudowski provides a more balanced assessment by fully examining the historical arguments presented in the earlier sections of that great work and those put forth in the Discourses on Livy. This study also devotes an entire chapter to the issue of Machiavelli's cyclical view of history and places his ideas in the context of his hopes for the unification of Italy under one secular leader. With thisbalanced historical perspective, Rudowski's analysis provides contemporary readers with a true appreciation of The Prince's originality and its lasting importance.