Machiavelli and the Modern State: The Prince, the Discourses on Livy, and the Extended Territorial Republic (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781107693708)

This book offers a significant reinterpretation of the history of republican political thought and of Niccol Machiavelli's place within it. It locates Machiavelli's political thought within enduring debates about the proper size of republics. From the sixteenth century onward, as states grew larger, it was believed only monarchies could govern large territories effectively. Republicanism was a form of government relegated to urban city-states, anachronisms in the new age of the territorial state. For centuries, history and theory were in agreement: constructing an extended republic was as futile as trying to square the circle; but then James Madison devised a compound representative republic that enabled popular government to take on renewed life in the modern era. This work argues that Machiavelli had his own Madisonian impulse and deserves to be recognized as the first modern political theorist to envision the possibility of a republic with a large population extending over a broad territory.

Author: Alissa M. Ardito
ISBN-10: 1107693705
ISBN-13: 9781107693708
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/11/2021
Pages: 339
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.76d