Brenda Maddox

The Columbus of Politics

Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood

By

Little, Brown 304pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

Stephen Joyce, James Joyce’s grandson, describes himself as ‘a Joyce but not a Joycean’. A similar claim could have been made by Niccolò Machiavelli. This highly readable new short biography shows that the Florentine political theorist was not machiavellian, for he was neither scheming nor brutal.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • He weeps by the side of the ocean, He weeps on the top of the hill; He purchases pancakes and lotion, And chocolate… ,
    • 'Half-way through The Conquest of Water I felt as if I had been subjected to the literary equivalent of excessive c… ,
    • 'Volume five, then, but still no end in sight. Sandbrook is clearly enjoying himself so much he can’t bear the seri… ,
    • 'By the end of the book something so weighty, stylish and impressive has been built up that one feels far nearer to… ,
    • 'Her ensuing psychotic episode is described so convincingly ... that the reader will wonder if Dobrakovová did not… ,
    • 'The perspectives complement and contest one another, amounting to a glorious, atmospheric set of ventriloquisms.'… ,
    • RT : I reviewed The Testaments for . I will not be taking any questions at this time. ,
    Follow Us