Show notes
From obscure beginnings to torture, exile, and desperate reinvention, the biography of Renaissance diplomat and author Niccolò Machiavelli reads like political theatre at its most brutal. In this episode, Alexander Lee speaks to Danny Bird about the man behind the myth. He presents Machiavelli as an 'everyman', who loved his family and friends, sang poetry, drank, gambled, and wrote by night, producing one of the most contentious books ever: The Prince. Long condemned as a manual for tyrants, might it instead be better to see it as a clear-eyed guide to political survival in unstable times?
Highlighted moments
why did such a nobody suddenly get thrust into such a prominent role? And the answer was probably because he was a nobody, or at least somebody who wasn't tainted by any political associations.
“He doesn't want to say that political figures, princes, should always be a model. He's not saying that the best prince is someone who lies as a matter of habit or is parsimonious from compulsion or is mean and cruel, kicks puppies in the face.”
Transcript
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