Product Description

Exploring both the political and intellectual contexts within which Machiavelli's political vision was formed, Mikael Hornqvist stresses the classical and rhetorical character of Machiavelli's thought. He analyzes his preoccupation with glory and liberality in relation to the revival of Roman ideas of triumphalism. The result is a revealing account of the formation of Machiavelli's characteristic preoccupations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2188725 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 324 pages

Review
"A learned and intriguing book." CHOICE

"Every student of Machiavelli should find this engaging and careful study of Machiavelli's most widely read book highly thought provoking and worthwhile." - Robert Eden, Hillsdale College

"Mikael Hornqvist's book thoughtfully situates Niccolo Machiavelli in historical context and offers many careful, subtle, detailed readings of his works...what I admire most about this book is the meticulousness of Hornqvist's readings' these are the real payoff of this rewarding study." American Historical Review Wayne A. Rebhorn, University of Texas, Austin

About the Author
Mikael Hörnqvist teaches in the Department of the History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Customer Reviews

An update of Hulliung's 1983 argument
This book takes one of the more central argument's of Hulliung's 'Citizen Machiavelli' and expands on it. Essentially, Hornqvist follows Hulliung in arguing that "the end of Machiavelli's thought is neither the restoration of republican goverment in Florence, nor the liberation of Italy, but greatness, 'the glorious, violent, and aggrandizing deeds that are better performed by republican citizens than monarchical subjects.'"

It is for this reason that Machiavelli is so poorly understood today, viewed as he is merely as a "teacher of evil" which is very far from the truth. As Nietzsche has been slandered, so has Machiavelli; the irony is that in hegemonic US, while the public discourse is latently anti-machiavellian and pro-kantian civility, in its actual practise over the past two centuries it has been an exemplary model of the Machiavellian state in action.

Read Hulliung first, then this book. After you have a strong grasp on current niccolo studies, then you can go read Strauss' "Thoughts on Machiavelli" and play his funny little word- and page-counting games. At least until you faint from laughter at his misreading of Niccolo.