"A brief and pithy summary of the contributions of Niccolò Machiavelli, a pivotal figure in modern political thought who is nevertheless often misunderstood…. Ryan’s summary is accompanied by fairly substantial extracts from Machiavelli’s key texts, allowing this book to serve as a teaching resource as well as a concise and readable introduction to its subject."
Booklist "Alan Ryan captures Machiavelli’s hold on the modern moral imagination when he says, “The staying power of The Prince comes from…its insistence on the need for a clear-sighted appreciation of how men really are as distinct from the moralizing claptrap about how they ought to be.” This moral clarity remains bracing in an era like our own, when politicians hide the necessary ruthlessness of political life behind the rhetoric of family values and Christian principles …. We are still drawn to Machiavelli because we sense how impatient he was with the equivalent flummery in his own day, and how determined he was to confront a problem that preoccupies us too: when and how much ruthlessness is necessary in the world of politics."
Michael Ignatieff - The Atlantic