People's Princes

Machiavelli, Leadership, and Liberty

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

AvJohn P. McCormick

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A new window into Machiavelli’s idea of virtuous leadership and the appropriate relationship among leaders, common citizens, and elites.For more than a decade, John P. McCormick has been at the forefront of a new wave of scholarship that reveals the anti-elitist and democratic commitments at the center of Niccolo Machiavelli’s political thought. In The People’s Princes, McCormick turns his attention to Machiavelli’s conception of virtuous leadership and Machiavelli’s views on the appropriate relationships among individual leaders, common citizens, and elites. While most people think of Machiavelli as a cynical advisor of tyrants—a man who counseled leaders to aggrandize themselves, by any means necessary, at the expense of their subjects and citizens—The People’s Princes fundamentally challenges this understanding. Drawing from Machiavelli’s major political works a normative standard for leadership that emphasizes the mutually reinforcing relationship of civic leadership and popular government, McCormick delineates Machiavelli’s method of “political exemplarity” by analyzing in detail the Florentine’s case studies of leaders and their interactions with populaces throughout ancient and modern history. McCormick argues that Machiavelli suggests that civic leaders should enhance their reputations by providing for their own eventual obsolescence; specifically, they should establish institutional means through which common citizens rule themselves more directly and substantively. The People’s Princes invites readers to consider Machiavelli anew, and also reflect on insights that remain relevant in the twenty-first century amidst growing concerns that political leaders are not accountable or responsive to popular majorities.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2025-08-22
Mått152 x 229 x 25 mm
Vikt567 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor304
FörlagThe University of Chicago Press
ISBN9780226842356

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ProloguePreface. Machiavelli’s Reconciling of Leadership and DemocracyPart 1. Salutary Tyranny in The Prince and Discourses1. Agathocles as Princely Exemplum (Agathocles, Hiero, Cesare Borgia, Liverotto da Fermo, Nabis the Spartan)2. Greek Tyrants and Roman Reformers (Cleomenes, Clearchus, the Gracchi, Scipio Africanus, Julius Caesar)Part 2. Civic Leadership in The Prince and Discourses3. Severe and Prudent Civic Magistrates: The Consul, the Dictator, and the Gonfalonier “for Life” (Lucius Brutus, Furius Camillus, and Piero Soderini)4. Rome’s Most Prudent Captain and Florence’s Unarmed Prophets: Envy, Exile, and Willingly Leaving Office (Camillus, Moses, Soderini, and Savonarola)5. Civic Corruption, Capital Trials, and the Assembled People (Marcus Menenius and Piero Soderini)6. Opening the People’s Eyes (at Least Partially): Civic versus Princely Leadership (Pacuvius Calanus and Cesare Borgia)Part 3. Imprudent Leadership in the Florentine Histories7. Faulty Foundings and Failed Reformers: The Civic Ills of Goodness, Patriotism, and Concord (Giano della Bella, Corso Donati, and Michele di Lando)8. Failed Tyrants: Bad Men Who Know Not How to Appear Good (Appius Claudius, Walter Brienne, and Septimius Severus)ConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

“McCormick’s books aim to highlight Machiavelli’s commitment to liberty and popular empowerment, portraying him as a defender against oligarchic control rather than an advocate for power politics. This perspective offers public administrators guidance on building a more resilient, participatory and accountable federal system. McCormick shows that Machiavelli provided much of the framework; what remains is the political will to trust the people.”