History of mordern political thought Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

History of mordern political thought - Essay Example..But broadly he wrote active politics. He was mad about politics. He says in one of his letters that he had to talk about it he could talk of nothing else...The Prince is scarcely more than a pamphlet, a really minor fraction of its authors work, further it overshadows all the rest...Everyone recognizes Machiavellian as an adjective for political conduct that combines blamed cunning with a ruthless disregard for moral standards...The Prince contradicts everything else Machiavelli ever wrote and everything we know about his life.... The notion that The Prince is what it pretends to be, a scientific manual for tyrants, has to contend not only against Machiavellis life but against his make-ups... The standard explanation has been that in the corrupt conditions of sixteenth-century Italy only a prince could create a strong state capable of expansion. The trouble with this is that it was generally because they widened their bound aries that Machiavelli preferred republics. In the Discorsi he wrote, We know by experience that states have never signally change magnitude either in territory or in riches except under a uncaring government. The cause is not far to seek, since it is the well-being not of the individuals but of the community which makes the state great, and without question this oecumenic well-being is nowhere secured save in a republic.... Popular notice is always better than the rule of princes. (1958) Machiavelli was a nationalist, a political scientist, a scholar and a staunch republican. About the most pro-monarchic date that could possibly be ascribed to him is that a Prince might be the best way to unify Italy. Machiavelli began by writing satire of the corrupt leaders of Italy such as the Medicis, making bare their horrible and destructive ambitions, but he also created neo political science simultaneously. This paper will analyze precisely how The Prince is in fact brilliant politica l science. Modern political science takes something for granted that classical analyses of politics and law would have found preposterous Analyses of what governments actually do and how to efficently carry out objectives are just as valuable as analyses of what governments should do. The Prince describes how princes actually behave and how they should behave if they want to be effective, not if they want to be moral. The Prince opens up in a rather startling way for a philosophy book about politics and law It describes what principalities there are (Chapter I). He goes on to distinguish separate types of rule for transmitted and mixed principalities (Chapter II and III). The Prince is proceeding with simple, clear analyses, breakdowns and categories. Filling The Prince is distinct analysis of history of the Greeks and Romans, what a modern political scientist would call a case study, providing support for his claims. Take his analysis of Nabis in Chapter IX. Nabis, Prince of the Spartans, sustained the ack-ack of all Greece, and of a victorious Roman army, and against them he defended his country and his government and for the overcoming of this peril it was only required for him to make himself secure against a few, but this would not have been sufficient if the people had been hostile...Granted a prince who has conventional himself as above, who can command, and is a man of courage, undismayed in adversity, who does not fail in opposite qualifications, and who, by his resolution and energy, keeps the whole people encouraged such a one will never find himself deceived in them, and it will be shown that