Who is Machiavelli?

Ada Palmer on the irony of the word 'Machiavellian' applied to one of history's most selfless patriots.

“This is why it's so weirdly ironic to me that the reputation, the word 'Machiavellian', means 'self-serving', when Machiavelli himself is one of the most selfless men I've ever read about in the history of the Earth.”

Ada Palmer on Machiavelli's definition of slavery as living under arbitrary power.

“If you live in a state where there is an arbitrary power who can have you put to death, you are a slave.”

Ada Palmer explains that Machiavelli evaluates historical leaders not by actual outcomes but by what the most probable outcome was before fortune intervened, separating skill from luck.

“He says we need to evaluate their deeds based on what the most probable outcome was before fortune intervened.”

Machiavelli is the first thinker in the European tradition to propose that multiple competing political parties could coexist productively within a single state.

“Machiavelli is the first person that we have ever in the European tradition to suggest that it could be viable for there to be more than one political party in a state at the same time, and that they would compete against each other and vent the society's tension through competition and vie to try to dominate an election and then the next one.”

Machiavelli's 'The Prince' only became widely read in the aftermath of Hobbes's 'Leviathan', not during or shortly after Machiavelli's own lifetime.

“Machiavelli becomes exciting first in the aftermath of the publication of Hobbes's Leviathan.”

Jordan Schneider frames Machiavelli as the weakest major military theorist, ranking Jomini above him despite Jomini's generally poor reputation among strategists.

“Machiavelli is the definitely the lesser of the of all the theorists. Jomini is in front of him, which is saying a lot.”