Machiavelli

"Wise, witty, razor-sharp" Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began

Interested in Machiavelli?That may be a bad sign.

We always turn to Machiavelli at crisis points in history – he is the philosopher for dark times. But what do we really know about this man? Is there more to his work than that perennial term for political evil, Machiavellianism?

In this concise, elegant book, Patrick Boucheron undoes many assumptions about this most complex of figures. By honing in on Machiavelli's role in the political life of his own time, Boucheron shows how his thought remains essential to understanding not only how authoritarianism works, but also how it can be fought.



Patrick Boucheron, born in 1965, is a French historian. He previously taught medieval history at the École normale supérieure and the University of Paris, and is currently a professor of history at the Collège de France. He is the author of twelve books and the editor of five, including France in the World, which became a bestseller in France.