Scholars have struggled valiantly to find an answer to these problems, but without reaching a consensus. How does The Prince fit within the context of Machiavelli’s thought? Was he really a monarchist or a republican? Was he just an eclectic and incoherent theorist? Such apparent self-contradiction begs some important questions. In the Discourses on Livy, for example, Machiavelli not only contends that “governments of the people” are superior to those of princes, but also asserts that “no prince ever benefits from making himself hated”.
Indeed, works such as the Discourses on Livy (c.1517) and the Art of War (c.1519-20) seem to run counter to many of pieces of advice given in The Prince. Although it is often viewed as an uncompromising portrait of monarchical – even tyrannical – government, many of Machiavelli’s other writings are suggestive of a much stronger attachment to republicanism. Yet The Prince presents something of a puzzle.
Renowned as the author of The Prince (c.1513), his infamous treatise has become an established milestone in the history of Western thought, and – as the word ‘Machiavellian’ suggests – he himself has come to be regarded as the archetypal proponent of hard-nosed power politics. Few figures in the history of political thought evoke such strong reactions as Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527).
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