A Machiavellian Blog

3:24 pm EST February 26th, 2010 | Comic Books | 3 Comments

This is cool. Don MacDonald is doing a graphic novel on the life of Machiavelli and is posting it online. I just recently bought the Prince to read for the first time. You know, so I can learn how to control the universe and stuff.

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3 Responses to “A Machiavellian Blog”

  1. Rheinhard says:
    February 26, 2010 at 7:04 pm

    Oliver, a word advice from a serious student of history. If you want to know what Machiavelli really thought and advocated for government, forget “The Prince”. Read the Discourses. “The Prince” was Machiavelli’s attempt to do a backhanded criticism of Medici, exposing a lot of what he saw going on in Italian politics. It wasn’t intended as a manual for how to do things.

    Much like “Book of Five Rings”, which everybody in America in the 80s thought explained how Japanese work, was really not a documentary so much as it was Musashi bitching about kids today. “In my day we slit our bellies 3 times before lunch, but these layoubout young samurai these days, all they want to do is drink! They don’t slit their bellies more than once a month!”

  2. Oliver Willis says:
    February 26, 2010 at 7:34 pm

    I’ll check it out. I’m an absorber so I want to read everything at least once.

  3. Don MacDonald says:
    February 26, 2010 at 7:41 pm

    Thanks for the link Oliver! (though its Don MacDonald)

    I partially agree with Rheinhard. Although The Discourses is Machiavelli’s grander project, and reflects better his own political preferences—he preferred a republic to a principality—one shouldn’t forget The Prince. I don’t believe The Prince is a work of satire. He wasn’t trying to criticize the Medici, he was trying to get a job with them. It most certainly was a manual of what worked and didn’t work in statecraft. Machiavelli hoped that he could impress someone enough with his book that they would allow him back to work for the Florentine government. But it was unsuccessful, either because genius is not appreciated in its own time or Machiavelli was too closely associated with the Soderini regime the Medici had deposed, or both.