Machiavelli: The Art of Teaching People What to Fear Paperback – February 11, 2020

Boucheron’s Machiavelli is a deceptively easy read. It’s written in so simple a tone that even the high schooler who is a neophyte to Machiavelli can read this as an introduction. But he also makes a case for Machiavelli’s current importance that is of interest to everyone from voters to statesmen to pundits.Based on a series of radio lectures given in France, Boucheron writes chronologically of Machiavelli’s life and accomplishments. One does get the sense that the author is grabbing only the most salient points from a much larger grasp of the subject. But all the major points are covered: the situation of the Italian city-states, the question of whether Machiavelli deserves the eponym Machiavellian, the political victories and ultimate setbacks...all the material for an introduction to Machiavelli is included.The more interesting part of the book is Boucheron’s invocation of a Machiavellian moment. According to his interpretation, Machiavelli is perennially important because he grasped that the governments of his day no longer truly represented their people. Even their language had become archaic and devoid of meaning.Looking to French elections, Brexit and the Trump phenomenon, Boucheron believes we are at such a moment in the West. The populace no longer feels their governments represent them or can even speak to them meaningfully. He invokes the Left’s use of “Fascists” as an example. Because the Left has no vocabulary but that of the twentieth century it calls right-wing movements “Fascist” despite the term’s lack of appropriateness. The Left, at least in this case, has not fashioned a vocabulary that can meet the present moment.This Machiavellian moment is precisely why Boucheron chose to gives these talks to a French audience. Whether you agree with him or not, it’s quite an artistic accomplishment to write an introduction to Machiavelli that also pertains to contemporary concerns.Highly recommended to all interested in the history of civilization and its effect on the present state of Western government. Given the obvious amount of public discord, I believe just about everyone falls into this category.

Many of the best books offer value: this one is valuable.

This was the first book I have read regarding Machiavelli and his politics. It is a good introduction to him as a political philosopher and his place in history. It doesn't get into the depth of his ideology, nor explanations of what drove him to his ideas. More of an overview. It's an easy read, but it has a lot of information. I'll read it a few times before I feel comfortable discussing his theories. I bought his other works too, to supplement this one.

Read ‘the prince’ as a seventeen year old, sixty years ago. An intro course in political science. rofessor an expert in Russian history and the grand design of the Soviet. Mixed with many texts on Utopias or ideal societies. I suspected reading Machiavelli as a Machiavellian with little real knowledge of the period or the man, was a problem. We were inTuscany six years ago at wedding of French exchange student who had travelled to our youngest son’s wedding in Chicago.A Wedding in a fifteenth century Church in a walled town half way between Florence and Sienna opened our eyes to ancient discord. The bride an Italian. Wedding was in French and Latin. Our four the only Americans. This book helps us find perspective.The volume seems brief, but many passages require absorption.The large body of Machiavelli’s writing unknown. The Disscourses piqued my interest. How he was approached over centuries is ever a part of intellectual history, but forgotten in the moment.That Diderot wrote Machiavelli and Machiavellian were the same is bothersome. Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote positively that, to paraphrase, Machiavelli wrote not for despots but teaching the people what to look out for. Despots know the techniques of Princes, the art of war.The book, brief, reads easily but teaches us about the times and turmoil of a world then in conflict. I believe it essential and would have made the intro to world politics in 1960 so much more valuable.

Scattered reflection, non directional opinionated authorship.

Do not buy this book. It is not what it is advertised to be: a corrective to the notion that Machiavelli was a teacher of evil and to find the real Machiavelli behind the mask of Machiavellianism. If you don't want to read Machiavelli and want a very light weight introduction that you could also find on the internet, then this is your book. If you want to find an answer to whether Machiavelli was a teacher of evil or what is the difference between what Machiavelli wrote and Machiavellianism, you won't find an adequate answer in this book. Each chapter has an interesting piece of art work. On page 50 for example, there is a copy of a page from Machiavelli's "Report on the State of Germany" written in the original Italian. The contents of that documents are never discussed. The author's discussion is very anecdotal and impressional and is written on grade school level. I will give the author credit for trying to discuss Machiavelli's plays as well as his political writings. But overall, you can find better on the internet.

If you know anything about Machiavelli you won’t learn anything from this book. If you know little of Machiavelli this book won’t help you either. It’s so brief as to be hardly worth calling it a book, with 47 of 145 pages of illustrations, mostly unhelpful. Just as the author starts to get into a subject he’s on to another subject. Many “chapters” are less than three pages. Read the entire thing in about 45 minutes. There’s so many good books about Machiavelli and his thinking - many out in the last few years - but this is not one of them.

The title is misleading and probably forced by a "Machiavellian" publisher to induce book sales.It contains a story of Machiavelli and Florence.Nothing really interesting unless you are writing a paper on Machiavelli.Easy to read in an hour or two.Nothing to fear.