The "Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli

The "Prince"

by Niccolo Machiavelli

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Reviewed by jamiereadthis on

5 of 5 stars

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Non-negotiable: read Ada Palmer’s five-part (plus?) series on Machiavelli. I’ll wait. She makes sense of the enigma, the real Machiavelli, neither lionized nor maligned. The brave thinker; the frightened statesman. Charismatic, unorthodox, forming a response to the Borgia tyranny, trying to save his beloved Florence, playing pranks on the monks, centuries ahead of his time.

It’s the reason I read this book again. I liked it the first time; the context, of which I had grasped only part, makes it even more remarkable now.

Although credit where due: the introduction to this translation does a fair attempt at that context. It’s too Borgia-lite to paint the full bloody picture, but it has Savonarola right there on the first page, so it’s on the right track.

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  • 10 February, 2020: Reviewed