| Citizen Machiavelli |  | Author: Mark Hulliung
Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr
Category: Book
Buy Used: $209.85
as of 9/10/2010 12:48 CDT details
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Used (2) from $209.85
Seller: quality7
Rating:  1 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 0691076618
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.010924
EAN: 9780691076614
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| Customer Reviews:
Machiavelli the unapologetic imperialist AND republican October 29, 2005
Bo K. (California!!!)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
One of the better analyses of Machiavelli's whole corpus, Hulliung debunks the myths about Niccolo being a teacher of evil (strauss), or that the "Discorsi" provides the republican corrective to the monarchical "Prince." Hulliung's Machiavelli is something of a Nietzschean pagan spirit who finds that the grand gesture of the hubristic individual is the best argument for republic, as it allows those with "virtu" to rise to the top.
Machiavelli according to Hulliung is no "democrat," and his great historical argument is against what would eventually develop into Kant's civil state and is now the over-riding philosophy of modern civic ethics. However, Machiavelli finds this sort of policy-making to be another word for weakness and vaccillation; Niccolo's example of this type of weak state was his own Florence, which he uses as the example of a weak polis in the "Storie Fiorentinae." While demanding republican government of his own city-state, Machiavelli recognized that this also required an expansive foreign policy, in order for the state to allow its citizens the opportunity to better themselves morally and financially(Machiavelli takes on new meaning in this light when read against the "manifest destiny" period of US history and Frederick Turner's Frontier thesis).
This becomes interesting in our early 21st century when one considers the types of arguments put forth by the Mayberry Machiavels in their argument for an expansive and violent foreign policy. Machiavelli would approve of their theory but not their blundering praxis. Hulliung's book tries to recapture this pagan Machiavelli from all of those who have misread him in our post-Kantian age, and he does a masterful job of it.
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