Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction
1. Machiavelli on Necessity
5. Machiavelli and the Misunderstanding of Princely Virtù
9. Machiavelli and the Gracchi: Republican Liberty and Class Conflict
12. The Reception of Machiavelli in Contemporary Republicanism: Some Ambiguities and Paradoxes
Index
David C. Johnston, Nadia Urbinati, and Camila Vergara
Part One: Between Antiquity and Modernity1. Machiavelli on Necessity
Harvey C. Mansfield
2. Machiavelli on Good and Evil: The Problem of Dirty Hands RevisitedGiovanni Giorgini
3. Machiavelli and the Critics of Rome: Rereading Discourses I.4Gabriele Pedullà
4. Machiavelli, “Ancient Theology,” and the Problem of Civil ReligionMiguel Vatter
Part Two: The Prince and the Politics of Necessity5. Machiavelli and the Misunderstanding of Princely Virtù
Quentin Skinner
6. The Necessity to Be Not-Good: Machiavelli’s Two RealismsErica Benner
7. Loyalty in AdversityStephen Holmes
8. Machiavelli and the Modern Tyrant Paul A. Rahe
Part Three: Class Struggle, Financial Power, and Extraordinary Authority in the Republic9. Machiavelli and the Gracchi: Republican Liberty and Class Conflict
Benedetto Fontana
10. Machiavelli, the Republic, and the Financial CrisisJérémie Barthas
11. Extraordinary Accidents in the Life of Republics: Machiavelli and Dictatorial AuthorityMarco Geuna
Part Four: Machiavellian Politics beyond Machiavelli12. The Reception of Machiavelli in Contemporary Republicanism: Some Ambiguities and Paradoxes
Jean-Fabien Spitz
13. On the Myth of the Conservative Turn in Machiavelli’s Florentine HistoriesJohn P. McCormick
14. Political Imagination, Conflict, and Democracy: Machiavelli’s Republican RealismLuca Baccelli
15. “Armi proprie e improprie” in the Work of Some Representative Italian Readers of the Twentieth CenturyMichele Battini
16. What Does a “Conjuncture-Embedded” Reflection Mean? The Legacy of Althusser’s Machiavelli to Contemporary Political TheoryMarie Gaille
ContributorsIndex
Review Quotes
Filippo Del Lucchese, Brunel University London
“Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict offers readers a series of invaluable essays that represent the most important trends in contemporary scholarship on Machiavelli. Johnston, Urbinati, and Vergara have assembled a remarkable group of scholars, including several whose recent contributions are not widely available in English, and the diverse essays in the book carry on a highly engaging conversation with one another with a coherence that one seldom sees in an anthology. The editor’s introduction is well-written and exhaustive, offering a clear picture of the reception of Machiavelli’s writing from the time of its original publication to the recent ‘renaissance’ of Machiavelli scholarship.”
Christopher Lynch, Carthage College
“The contributors to Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict bring a diversity of approaches to bear on the works of Machiavelli. Among them are Harvey Mansfield, who has written an elegant analysis of the idea of necessity; Miguel Vatter, who develops the similarities between Machiavelli and al-Farabi vis-à-vis The Art of War; Quentin Skinner, who offers a fine-grained analysis of the crucial concept of virtue; and Gabriele Pedullà, who gives a highly textured account of the possible foils Machiavelli alludes to in the Discourses on Livy, and many others that will set the volume apart from many other such collections. Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict will be welcomed by classicists and scholars in Renaissance studies, as well as political theorists.”
Perspectives on Politics
"The volume presents a wide range of approaches and interpretations . . . Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict performs the sort of disagreement that Berlin catalogued, a performance that is particularly apt given the centrality of conflict to the volume’s title."
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