Machiavelli's 'The Prince'

Miguel Vatter is Professor of Politics in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He has written extensively on Machiavelli, republicanism, biopolitics, and political theology.

This is a lively, original and bracing account of Machiavelli's revolutionary intervention in the history of political thought. In short compass, Vatter deftly explicates Machiavelli's critique of the classical and medieval natural law tradition, his Lucretian revaluation of contingency, his anticipations of liberal and democratic theory, and his complex attitude towards religion. I enthusiastically recommend this wonderful reader's guide. -- Victoria Kahn, Katharine Bixby Hotchkis Chair in English, University of California, Berkeley, USA Miguel Vatter has written an extraordinary, new contribution to Machiavelli studies. Machiavelli's 'The Prince': A Reader's Guide serves both as a remarkably lucid, erudite introductory guide to The Prince, and as a fresh, penetrating interpretation of the text that will intrigue and enlighten even the most accomplished Machiavelli scholar. Vatter's Reader's Guide ought to be on the syllabus of every course where the great Florentine's infamous "little book" is read, and must be on the reading list of any scholar of Machiavelli's political thought or Renaissance intellectual history today. -- John P. McCormick, University of Chicago, USA This is a splendid guide, offering a firm, informed hand across tricky, Machiavellian territory. -- Philip Pettit, Princeton University and the Australian National University An outstanding guide to the most fascinating and thought-provoking work written by Machiavelli. Vatter not only masters the most authoritative international scholarship on the Florentine Secretary, but offers very insightful and innovative interpretations of crucial problems of Machiavelli's political thought. In an illuminating way, he succeeds in reading Machiavelli's conceptualizations against the background of the Western philosophical tradition, ranging from Plato to Cicero, from Aristotle to Lucretius. Marco Geuna, Associate Professor of History of Political Philosophy, University of Milan, Italy

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviations to the Works of Machiavelli1. Context: The Renaissance and the Machiavellian “Moment”2. Overview: The Prince as a Work of Rhetoric and of Philosophy 3. The Seduction of a Prince: Dedication. 4. Acquiring State: chapters 1-6.5. Securing Society: chapters 7-10.6. Arming the People: chapters 11-14. 7. The New Prince Goes through the Looking Glass: chapters 15-23.8. Disarming Fortune and the Arming of Heaven: chapters 24-26.9. Reception and InfluenceNotesNotes for Further Reading Selective BibliographyIndex