A great resource, 11 Apr 2008
Knowing Machiavelli only by reputation and starting a course of Renaissance study I found the amount of material available by and about him rather overwhelming. Having had great experiences with the OUP Very Short Introduction To series before I made this my starting point.

Skinner does a great job of condensing a significant amount of material into readily understandable, bite sized chunks. He focuses on three areas of his life, the writing of The Prince, the Discourses and his work as a Florentine historian. He attempts to understand the driving force of the man and his motivation in writing, particularly in relation to the key idea of virtus, which Machiavelli sees as a key quality in a leader, a successful state and a successful country.

I now feel prepared to tackle Machiavelli's work head on, with a great guide to help me. An excellent resource.

A useful introduction, though dense and lacking in structure, 07 Mar 2008
The Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press has a good reputation for presenting challenging subjects in an easily accessible manner. Quentin Skinner's contribution, "Machiavelli", charts the life, career and major works of one of the most famous figures of Renaissance Italy, a man whose theories have had great influence on modern political thought, but who has been much misrepresented.

On the whole this is a good, straightforward account of Machiavelli's life and works, and even though the material feels very densely presented, Skinner's style and argument are generally clear. He traces the development of Machiavelli's political thought, from both his contemporary exemplars and Roman models (authors such as Livy and Sallust), showing both how drew on these sources and how he diverged from them, at every stage backing up his arguments with examples from the texts. Unfortunately it is difficult to get a sense of perspective on Machiavelli, since we are offered little clue as to how other historians have responded to the man's work in the centuries since his death. It is disappointing, too, that Skinner does not, in the end, come to any real conclusions himself about the man or his ideas, or his continuing relevance in the modern world. As a result the book as a whole feels slightly lacking in structure.

For the casual reader, or someone reading about Machiavelli for the first time, the material may initially feel quite daunting or overly-academic. More space could have been devoted to explaining the world of Machiavelli and the socio-political situation of Renaissance Italy c. 1500, to root the reader in the period first of all. Notable is the omission of a political map of the peninsula, which might have helped in providing some context. Similarly, it would have been useful to have as reference a chronology of Machiavelli's life, together with the main political events of the time. On the other hand, Skinner provides a long list of further reading, so that it is possible to follow up some of his points, although many of these are articles in academic journals, suggesting that it is the student rather than the general reader who is his intended audience.

Everything considered, "Machiavelli" is a highly informative and comprehensive overview of the man's career, although the casual reader may find it quite hard to get to grips with.

The Machiavellian Reader, 03 Jun 2005
I suppose there is a certain irony in reading Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, for in doing so you indulge in the machiavellian trait that the means justify the end (or as Niccolo himself more eloquently puts it "though the deed accuses him, the results excuse him"). Ramming the history, context, treatise and fundamentals of Machiavellian philosophy into 100 pages is no mean feat. Notwithstanding the small writing.

After 100 pages of squinting you feel altogether more erudite, possibly confident enough to pub-challenge the use of the adjective 'machiavellian' as an inappropriate representation of the man's philosophy. You could lecture ad nauseam that Machiavelli preached, not that you should be duplicitous for the sake of duplicity, or immoral for the sake of immorality, but only as sensible strategies should the circumstances dictate. One in the eye for Cicero, Livy and his humanist pals. Seems pretty obvious to us rational, philisophically enlightened, media-educated children of Darwin. But to have said so to Machiavelli would probably have been an anachronism.

Power to Niccolo, the man spoke sense. Power to Mr Skinner, a virtuoso perfomance.

Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction Reviewed, 20 Nov 2003
Skinner’s contribution to the “Very Short Introduction” series of Oxford University Press serves the purpose for which the series is dedicated. It provides a brief, concise introduction to Machiavelli’s major political and historical works. A neophyte will find this book an invaluable beginning. Skinner adds a selective but useful bibliography, which permits students new to Machiavelli’s writings to further their studies. The humanist and historical frameworks too are sketched, as well as sufficient biographical details given for one to place Machiavelli in context. In keeping with the humanist tradition, it instructs and improves those who read it. I recommend this book because one learns by reading it and is, thereby, improved.

But I do not wholeheartedly endorse it because it fails to live up to one of Skinner’s hopes. He hopes that it might prove “of some interest to specialists in the field.” The author’s desire “to be of interest” leads him to state that he has “not altered” his “basic line of argument.” Machiavelli remains to him “essentially” an “exponent of a neo-classical form of humanist political thought” (preface). Neo-classical humanism was the milieu that provided Niccoló Machiavelli with his intellectual framework. He adopted, according to Skinner, both its forms and its principles.

The author also tells us, on the other hand, that Niccoló demonstrated “extraordinary originality in his attack on the prevailing moral assumptions of his age.” How can he both demonstrate “extraordinary originality” and be “an exponent” of something received? The difficulties of being both must be known to Skinner, because he informs us – in more than one place – that Niccoló “shatters” the humanist expectations that he had built up (see pp. 42 and 92). Niccoló goes out of his way, moreover, to assert his independence from the humanist and classical intellectual forms in Chapter XV of Il Principe. Perhaps a specialist would learn more if Skinner took that claim more seriously. Let us charitably assume that the conditions incumbent on writing a “very short introduction” have undermined the author’s capacity to justify adequately his conviction.

Mr. Skinner, also in his desire to say something to specialists, derides “Leo Strauss and his disciples” for their “unrepentant insistence” on passing judgment. Niccoló Machiavelli is in the traditional view “a teacher of evil.” Strauss takes pains to maintain that view. Skinner, on the other hand, dwells not on the examples used by Niccoló to illustrate his pivotal concept of “virtú.” For Skinner’s readers, virtú becomes palatable through its transfiguration into “moral flexibility.” Moral flexibility serves the maintenance and, far more importantly, the founding of a state. Niccoló’s virtú, however, shocks all but the most vitiated and obtuse, at least on first reading. We need merely reflect on the examples of Hannibal, Agathocles, Bagilioni, Alexander VI, and Caesar Borgia. Isn’t it better to ask why Niccoló wrote both what he did and how he did than deny the obvious?

Skinner is, however, very close to an important truth. If you want to understand Machiavelli, you must grasp his primary concern. That primary concern is the fate of his fatherland, which haunts every page of his writings. The fate of Niccoló’s first love causes him “to mull over the absurdities of this world.” Those absurdities eventually broke his spirit. Yet Niccoló’s reflections on “the goodness of his times” led him to see the requirements of politics. He came thereby to see its incompatibility with being a virtuous person. Virtuous, in the sense intended here, is the common, traditional sense of virtue. One is now prepared to understand Strauss’ twin assertions. The first, and by far the most famous, is that “[t]he problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.” The surface of Niccoló’s teaching is that one must sometimes do evil to maintain “one’s state.” Evil is not always required to be effective in politics, but only sometimes. Niccoló fixes on those atypical sometimes, I hasten to add, because he endeavors to cheat fortune.

Perhaps it is now easy to see how Niccoló came to be a substitute for the Devil. This is Strauss’ second assertion. The Devil is a fallen angel, or “possesses a perverted nobility of a very high order.” On his deathbed, he lampooned Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” with one of his own. Niccoló claimed to have dreamed that he saw two groups of men passing before him. The first were poorly attired, emaciated, claiming to be saints on their way to heaven. The second were regally attired and noble in bearing. Discussing the greatest themes of politics, they were ancient founders and political philosophers fated to hell. Niccoló opted to join them. He has no concern for his soul, because he loves his fatherland even more.

Yet Niccoló goes further than declaiming the weakness into which Catholicism led this world. He maligns ambitious leisure too. Niccoló seemingly reverses the ranking and alters the relationship between politics and wisdom as established previously in the tradition stretching back to Plato. Plato and Aristotle wrote to demonstrate that they could found entirely new regimes. But Niccoló places them below those who had become gods through founding actual regimes. The latter – real founders of existing and previously existing regimes – not only were capable but also were fortunate. Niccoló wishes, however, not only to demonstrate that he belongs with them in hell. He wishes to surpass them all, and with this realization we are tempted to use Milton in explaining the joke. Fortune can be beaten. The Devil too can be overcome. Revisiting the fertile fields found between the mountains, i.e., returning to Chapter XIV, is enough for you to touch what he truly is. It might do us all some good to invite Skinner and Strauss’ disciples to do the same.

The Best Book on Machiavelli?, 26 Jul 2003
Machiavelli inspires a never-ending stream of academic studies and biographies which violently disagree with one another. But it will be a brave author who will disagree with Quentin Skinner, who says more of interest in this small book than dozens of his predecessors combined. If you read this, along with Isaiah Berlin's essay on "The Originality of Machiavelli" and Sebastian de Grazia's biography, you can save yourself a decade or so of leafing through the chaff.

It's really amazing how Skinner writes on his subject with such precision given the difficulty others have had in pinning Machiavelli down. He has a genuine gift for explaining arcane academic principles in a simple, clear and interesting way. This doesn't mean that he evades the more doubtful issues and ambiguities regarding Machiavelli - he just has great judgement in spotting which are important and which are meaningless wrangles. I like reading this book almost as much as I like reading Machiavelli.

A great resource, 11 Apr 2008
Knowing Machiavelli only by reputation and starting a course of Renaissance study I found the amount of material available by and about him rather overwhelming. Having had great experiences with the OUP Very Short Introduction To series before I made this my starting point.

Skinner does a great job of condensing a significant amount of material into readily understandable, bite sized chunks. He focuses on three areas of his life, the writing of The Prince, the Discourses and his work as a Florentine historian. He attempts to understand the driving force of the man and his motivation in writing, particularly in relation to the key idea of virtus, which Machiavelli sees as a key quality in a leader, a successful state and a successful country.

I now feel prepared to tackle Machiavelli's work head on, with a great guide to help me. An excellent resource.

A useful introduction, though dense and lacking in structure, 07 Mar 2008
The Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press has a good reputation for presenting challenging subjects in an easily accessible manner. Quentin Skinner's contribution, "Machiavelli", charts the life, career and major works of one of the most famous figures of Renaissance Italy, a man whose theories have had great influence on modern political thought, but who has been much misrepresented.

On the whole this is a good, straightforward account of Machiavelli's life and works, and even though the material feels very densely presented, Skinner's style and argument are generally clear. He traces the development of Machiavelli's political thought, from both his contemporary exemplars and Roman models (authors such as Livy and Sallust), showing both how drew on these sources and how he diverged from them, at every stage backing up his arguments with examples from the texts. Unfortunately it is difficult to get a sense of perspective on Machiavelli, since we are offered little clue as to how other historians have responded to the man's work in the centuries since his death. It is disappointing, too, that Skinner does not, in the end, come to any real conclusions himself about the man or his ideas, or his continuing relevance in the modern world. As a result the book as a whole feels slightly lacking in structure.

For the casual reader, or someone reading about Machiavelli for the first time, the material may initially feel quite daunting or overly-academic. More space could have been devoted to explaining the world of Machiavelli and the socio-political situation of Renaissance Italy c. 1500, to root the reader in the period first of all. Notable is the omission of a political map of the peninsula, which might have helped in providing some context. Similarly, it would have been useful to have as reference a chronology of Machiavelli's life, together with the main political events of the time. On the other hand, Skinner provides a long list of further reading, so that it is possible to follow up some of his points, although many of these are articles in academic journals, suggesting that it is the student rather than the general reader who is his intended audience.

Everything considered, "Machiavelli" is a highly informative and comprehensive overview of the man's career, although the casual reader may find it quite hard to get to grips with.

The Machiavellian Reader, 03 Jun 2005
I suppose there is a certain irony in reading Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, for in doing so you indulge in the machiavellian trait that the means justify the end (or as Niccolo himself more eloquently puts it "though the deed accuses him, the results excuse him"). Ramming the history, context, treatise and fundamentals of Machiavellian philosophy into 100 pages is no mean feat. Notwithstanding the small writing.

After 100 pages of squinting you feel altogether more erudite, possibly confident enough to pub-challenge the use of the adjective 'machiavellian' as an inappropriate representation of the man's philosophy. You could lecture ad nauseam that Machiavelli preached, not that you should be duplicitous for the sake of duplicity, or immoral for the sake of immorality, but only as sensible strategies should the circumstances dictate. One in the eye for Cicero, Livy and his humanist pals. Seems pretty obvious to us rational, philisophically enlightened, media-educated children of Darwin. But to have said so to Machiavelli would probably have been an anachronism.

Power to Niccolo, the man spoke sense. Power to Mr Skinner, a virtuoso perfomance.

Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction Reviewed, 20 Nov 2003
Skinner’s contribution to the “Very Short Introduction” series of Oxford University Press serves the purpose for which the series is dedicated. It provides a brief, concise introduction to Machiavelli’s major political and historical works. A neophyte will find this book an invaluable beginning. Skinner adds a selective but useful bibliography, which permits students new to Machiavelli’s writings to further their studies. The humanist and historical frameworks too are sketched, as well as sufficient biographical details given for one to place Machiavelli in context. In keeping with the humanist tradition, it instructs and improves those who read it. I recommend this book because one learns by reading it and is, thereby, improved.

But I do not wholeheartedly endorse it because it fails to live up to one of Skinner’s hopes. He hopes that it might prove “of some interest to specialists in the field.” The author’s desire “to be of interest” leads him to state that he has “not altered” his “basic line of argument.” Machiavelli remains to him “essentially” an “exponent of a neo-classical form of humanist political thought” (preface). Neo-classical humanism was the milieu that provided Niccoló Machiavelli with his intellectual framework. He adopted, according to Skinner, both its forms and its principles.

The author also tells us, on the other hand, that Niccoló demonstrated “extraordinary originality in his attack on the prevailing moral assumptions of his age.” How can he both demonstrate “extraordinary originality” and be “an exponent” of something received? The difficulties of being both must be known to Skinner, because he informs us – in more than one place – that Niccoló “shatters” the humanist expectations that he had built up (see pp. 42 and 92). Niccoló goes out of his way, moreover, to assert his independence from the humanist and classical intellectual forms in Chapter XV of Il Principe. Perhaps a specialist would learn more if Skinner took that claim more seriously. Let us charitably assume that the conditions incumbent on writing a “very short introduction” have undermined the author’s capacity to justify adequately his conviction.

Mr. Skinner, also in his desire to say something to specialists, derides “Leo Strauss and his disciples” for their “unrepentant insistence” on passing judgment. Niccoló Machiavelli is in the traditional view “a teacher of evil.” Strauss takes pains to maintain that view. Skinner, on the other hand, dwells not on the examples used by Niccoló to illustrate his pivotal concept of “virtú.” For Skinner’s readers, virtú becomes palatable through its transfiguration into “moral flexibility.” Moral flexibility serves the maintenance and, far more importantly, the founding of a state. Niccoló’s virtú, however, shocks all but the most vitiated and obtuse, at least on first reading. We need merely reflect on the examples of Hannibal, Agathocles, Bagilioni, Alexander VI, and Caesar Borgia. Isn’t it better to ask why Niccoló wrote both what he did and how he did than deny the obvious?

Skinner is, however, very close to an important truth. If you want to understand Machiavelli, you must grasp his primary concern. That primary concern is the fate of his fatherland, which haunts every page of his writings. The fate of Niccoló’s first love causes him “to mull over the absurdities of this world.” Those absurdities eventually broke his spirit. Yet Niccoló’s reflections on “the goodness of his times” led him to see the requirements of politics. He came thereby to see its incompatibility with being a virtuous person. Virtuous, in the sense intended here, is the common, traditional sense of virtue. One is now prepared to understand Strauss’ twin assertions. The first, and by far the most famous, is that “[t]he problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.” The surface of Niccoló’s teaching is that one must sometimes do evil to maintain “one’s state.” Evil is not always required to be effective in politics, but only sometimes. Niccoló fixes on those atypical sometimes, I hasten to add, because he endeavors to cheat fortune.

Perhaps it is now easy to see how Niccoló came to be a substitute for the Devil. This is Strauss’ second assertion. The Devil is a fallen angel, or “possesses a perverted nobility of a very high order.” On his deathbed, he lampooned Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” with one of his own. Niccoló claimed to have dreamed that he saw two groups of men passing before him. The first were poorly attired, emaciated, claiming to be saints on their way to heaven. The second were regally attired and noble in bearing. Discussing the greatest themes of politics, they were ancient founders and political philosophers fated to hell. Niccoló opted to join them. He has no concern for his soul, because he loves his fatherland even more.

Yet Niccoló goes further than declaiming the weakness into which Catholicism led this world. He maligns ambitious leisure too. Niccoló seemingly reverses the ranking and alters the relationship between politics and wisdom as established previously in the tradition stretching back to Plato. Plato and Aristotle wrote to demonstrate that they could found entirely new regimes. But Niccoló places them below those who had become gods through founding actual regimes. The latter – real founders of existing and previously existing regimes – not only were capable but also were fortunate. Niccoló wishes, however, not only to demonstrate that he belongs with them in hell. He wishes to surpass them all, and with this realization we are tempted to use Milton in explaining the joke. Fortune can be beaten. The Devil too can be overcome. Revisiting the fertile fields found between the mountains, i.e., returning to Chapter XIV, is enough for you to touch what he truly is. It might do us all some good to invite Skinner and Strauss’ disciples to do the same.

The Best Book on Machiavelli?, 26 Jul 2003
Machiavelli inspires a never-ending stream of academic studies and biographies which violently disagree with one another. But it will be a brave author who will disagree with Quentin Skinner, who says more of interest in this small book than dozens of his predecessors combined. If you read this, along with Isaiah Berlin's essay on "The Originality of Machiavelli" and Sebastian de Grazia's biography, you can save yourself a decade or so of leafing through the chaff.

It's really amazing how Skinner writes on his subject with such precision given the difficulty others have had in pinning Machiavelli down. He has a genuine gift for explaining arcane academic principles in a simple, clear and interesting way. This doesn't mean that he evades the more doubtful issues and ambiguities regarding Machiavelli - he just has great judgement in spotting which are important and which are meaningless wrangles. I like reading this book almost as much as I like reading Machiavelli.

The Enneads for Dummies, 25 Oct 2007
The Enneads is a staggering vision of unity. The concept of the soul plays a central part. Here's my take at a very brief summation:

1. The source of the soul ... and of everything else lies in a oneness (the One) that can be inferred but never contacted. So the One isn't a personal God. It isn't aware of us, so it doesn't intervene in our affairs.

2. What the soul receives ... are the goodness and intelligence that emanated from the source and are the principal characteristics of our cosmos. We exist in a cosmos that is fundamentally good and intelligent and we can sense and see that.

3. The mixed blessing for the soul ... is embodiment in matter, which, on the positive side, provides a context for helping and for personal growth. In a world of many, the one soul appears as many souls.

4. The downside of that blessing ... are pain, isolation, and the suffering and distraction caused by attachment to material things. Evil is real but we're created in a fundamentally good and intelligent place and with powers to deal with it.

5. The way to live ... includes recognizing that the many souls are in fact one. Individuality is the reward and the price the soul paid to become embodied. Just as the One gives richly via its emanations, so we should give to the cosmos. Enjoy and feel awed by the beauty around and within you.

6. We're no small things ... but a product of the One, of its Intelligence and Soul... each of our souls linked to each other via that one soul.

7. Soul and body go well together. The individual body being material isn't permanent. But the soul and the cosmos are, so the soul re-enters material life via a new body.

Unlike some religious positions that may seem similar, all of this and more can be demonstrated in a rational presentation that begins with just a few stated assumptions. That's what you'll find in The Enneads, a culmination of centuries of ancient Greek philosophy. As much a treasure as a book can be.

This is an important book because-, 18 Aug 2007
it influenced 10 centuries of European Medieval thought, even though
no European had read it! But important Medieval writers and thinkers like St Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionyseus acted as conduits for his thought.

Plotinus borrowed from all the philosophies of the Classical and Ancient World. At the same time he placed great emphasis on the individual, so in this sense he is a kind of bridge between the modern and ancient worlds. Although his ideas are quarried by later Christian thinkers, Plotinus regards negative acts or behaviour as the product of a lack of intelligence, rather than the later Christian idea of evil itself being a kind of positive force. In fact pure intellect Plotinus regards as intrinsically good. It is this idea that becomes the foundation of Christian mysticism in the West, the idea that it is possible to know God through the intellect. God has three parts, the hightest of which is also a pure intelligence, according to Plotinus, who calls this highest part 'The Good.'

This book is really about the structure and order of Man, the Universe and Everything as it was seen in the late classical period, from a Platonist viewpoint. Interesting sections are on things like Astrology, then seen as a science: 'Are stars causes?'

One of the problems early Christians had is that the New Testament, unlike say Islam, does not provide a model of the Universe, a system ofmetaphysics or a detailed idea of what it is to be human, save in being sinful and requiring redemption. This book, like many others, was used as a source material by theologians such as St Thomas Aquinus, who were trying to construct an intellectual foundation around Christianity.

One of the problems people had in the past was not understanding biochemistry, of how matter can live, so they constructed a beautiful and interesting series of ideas about how souls enter and leave beings causing them to live or die.

One of the many interesting ideas here is how ideas themselves can have independent lives, as spirits as it were. This could be a forerunner of CG Jung's archetype theory of psychology.

This book is beautifully translated and very easy to read.

A great resource, 11 Apr 2008
Knowing Machiavelli only by reputation and starting a course of Renaissance study I found the amount of material available by and about him rather overwhelming. Having had great experiences with the OUP Very Short Introduction To series before I made this my starting point.

Skinner does a great job of condensing a significant amount of material into readily understandable, bite sized chunks. He focuses on three areas of his life, the writing of The Prince, the Discourses and his work as a Florentine historian. He attempts to understand the driving force of the man and his motivation in writing, particularly in relation to the key idea of virtus, which Machiavelli sees as a key quality in a leader, a successful state and a successful country.

I now feel prepared to tackle Machiavelli's work head on, with a great guide to help me. An excellent resource.

A useful introduction, though dense and lacking in structure, 07 Mar 2008
The Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press has a good reputation for presenting challenging subjects in an easily accessible manner. Quentin Skinner's contribution, "Machiavelli", charts the life, career and major works of one of the most famous figures of Renaissance Italy, a man whose theories have had great influence on modern political thought, but who has been much misrepresented.

On the whole this is a good, straightforward account of Machiavelli's life and works, and even though the material feels very densely presented, Skinner's style and argument are generally clear. He traces the development of Machiavelli's political thought, from both his contemporary exemplars and Roman models (authors such as Livy and Sallust), showing both how drew on these sources and how he diverged from them, at every stage backing up his arguments with examples from the texts. Unfortunately it is difficult to get a sense of perspective on Machiavelli, since we are offered little clue as to how other historians have responded to the man's work in the centuries since his death. It is disappointing, too, that Skinner does not, in the end, come to any real conclusions himself about the man or his ideas, or his continuing relevance in the modern world. As a result the book as a whole feels slightly lacking in structure.

For the casual reader, or someone reading about Machiavelli for the first time, the material may initially feel quite daunting or overly-academic. More space could have been devoted to explaining the world of Machiavelli and the socio-political situation of Renaissance Italy c. 1500, to root the reader in the period first of all. Notable is the omission of a political map of the peninsula, which might have helped in providing some context. Similarly, it would have been useful to have as reference a chronology of Machiavelli's life, together with the main political events of the time. On the other hand, Skinner provides a long list of further reading, so that it is possible to follow up some of his points, although many of these are articles in academic journals, suggesting that it is the student rather than the general reader who is his intended audience.

Everything considered, "Machiavelli" is a highly informative and comprehensive overview of the man's career, although the casual reader may find it quite hard to get to grips with.

The Machiavellian Reader, 03 Jun 2005
I suppose there is a certain irony in reading Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, for in doing so you indulge in the machiavellian trait that the means justify the end (or as Niccolo himself more eloquently puts it "though the deed accuses him, the results excuse him"). Ramming the history, context, treatise and fundamentals of Machiavellian philosophy into 100 pages is no mean feat. Notwithstanding the small writing.

After 100 pages of squinting you feel altogether more erudite, possibly confident enough to pub-challenge the use of the adjective 'machiavellian' as an inappropriate representation of the man's philosophy. You could lecture ad nauseam that Machiavelli preached, not that you should be duplicitous for the sake of duplicity, or immoral for the sake of immorality, but only as sensible strategies should the circumstances dictate. One in the eye for Cicero, Livy and his humanist pals. Seems pretty obvious to us rational, philisophically enlightened, media-educated children of Darwin. But to have said so to Machiavelli would probably have been an anachronism.

Power to Niccolo, the man spoke sense. Power to Mr Skinner, a virtuoso perfomance.

Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction Reviewed, 20 Nov 2003
Skinner’s contribution to the “Very Short Introduction” series of Oxford University Press serves the purpose for which the series is dedicated. It provides a brief, concise introduction to Machiavelli’s major political and historical works. A neophyte will find this book an invaluable beginning. Skinner adds a selective but useful bibliography, which permits students new to Machiavelli’s writings to further their studies. The humanist and historical frameworks too are sketched, as well as sufficient biographical details given for one to place Machiavelli in context. In keeping with the humanist tradition, it instructs and improves those who read it. I recommend this book because one learns by reading it and is, thereby, improved.

But I do not wholeheartedly endorse it because it fails to live up to one of Skinner’s hopes. He hopes that it might prove “of some interest to specialists in the field.” The author’s desire “to be of interest” leads him to state that he has “not altered” his “basic line of argument.” Machiavelli remains to him “essentially” an “exponent of a neo-classical form of humanist political thought” (preface). Neo-classical humanism was the milieu that provided Niccoló Machiavelli with his intellectual framework. He adopted, according to Skinner, both its forms and its principles.

The author also tells us, on the other hand, that Niccoló demonstrated “extraordinary originality in his attack on the prevailing moral assumptions of his age.” How can he both demonstrate “extraordinary originality” and be “an exponent” of something received? The difficulties of being both must be known to Skinner, because he informs us – in more than one place – that Niccoló “shatters” the humanist expectations that he had built up (see pp. 42 and 92). Niccoló goes out of his way, moreover, to assert his independence from the humanist and classical intellectual forms in Chapter XV of Il Principe. Perhaps a specialist would learn more if Skinner took that claim more seriously. Let us charitably assume that the conditions incumbent on writing a “very short introduction” have undermined the author’s capacity to justify adequately his conviction.

Mr. Skinner, also in his desire to say something to specialists, derides “Leo Strauss and his disciples” for their “unrepentant insistence” on passing judgment. Niccoló Machiavelli is in the traditional view “a teacher of evil.” Strauss takes pains to maintain that view. Skinner, on the other hand, dwells not on the examples used by Niccoló to illustrate his pivotal concept of “virtú.” For Skinner’s readers, virtú becomes palatable through its transfiguration into “moral flexibility.” Moral flexibility serves the maintenance and, far more importantly, the founding of a state. Niccoló’s virtú, however, shocks all but the most vitiated and obtuse, at least on first reading. We need merely reflect on the examples of Hannibal, Agathocles, Bagilioni, Alexander VI, and Caesar Borgia. Isn’t it better to ask why Niccoló wrote both what he did and how he did than deny the obvious?

Skinner is, however, very close to an important truth. If you want to understand Machiavelli, you must grasp his primary concern. That primary concern is the fate of his fatherland, which haunts every page of his writings. The fate of Niccoló’s first love causes him “to mull over the absurdities of this world.” Those absurdities eventually broke his spirit. Yet Niccoló’s reflections on “the goodness of his times” led him to see the requirements of politics. He came thereby to see its incompatibility with being a virtuous person. Virtuous, in the sense intended here, is the common, traditional sense of virtue. One is now prepared to understand Strauss’ twin assertions. The first, and by far the most famous, is that “[t]he problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.” The surface of Niccoló’s teaching is that one must sometimes do evil to maintain “one’s state.” Evil is not always required to be effective in politics, but only sometimes. Niccoló fixes on those atypical sometimes, I hasten to add, because he endeavors to cheat fortune.

Perhaps it is now easy to see how Niccoló came to be a substitute for the Devil. This is Strauss’ second assertion. The Devil is a fallen angel, or “possesses a perverted nobility of a very high order.” On his deathbed, he lampooned Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” with one of his own. Niccoló claimed to have dreamed that he saw two groups of men passing before him. The first were poorly attired, emaciated, claiming to be saints on their way to heaven. The second were regally attired and noble in bearing. Discussing the greatest themes of politics, they were ancient founders and political philosophers fated to hell. Niccoló opted to join them. He has no concern for his soul, because he loves his fatherland even more.

Yet Niccoló goes further than declaiming the weakness into which Catholicism led this world. He maligns ambitious leisure too. Niccoló seemingly reverses the ranking and alters the relationship between politics and wisdom as established previously in the tradition stretching back to Plato. Plato and Aristotle wrote to demonstrate that they could found entirely new regimes. But Niccoló places them below those who had become gods through founding actual regimes. The latter – real founders of existing and previously existing regimes – not only were capable but also were fortunate. Niccoló wishes, however, not only to demonstrate that he belongs with them in hell. He wishes to surpass them all, and with this realization we are tempted to use Milton in explaining the joke. Fortune can be beaten. The Devil too can be overcome. Revisiting the fertile fields found between the mountains, i.e., returning to Chapter XIV, is enough for you to touch what he truly is. It might do us all some good to invite Skinner and Strauss’ disciples to do the same.

The Best Book on Machiavelli?, 26 Jul 2003
Machiavelli inspires a never-ending stream of academic studies and biographies which violently disagree with one another. But it will be a brave author who will disagree with Quentin Skinner, who says more of interest in this small book than dozens of his predecessors combined. If you read this, along with Isaiah Berlin's essay on "The Originality of Machiavelli" and Sebastian de Grazia's biography, you can save yourself a decade or so of leafing through the chaff.

It's really amazing how Skinner writes on his subject with such precision given the difficulty others have had in pinning Machiavelli down. He has a genuine gift for explaining arcane academic principles in a simple, clear and interesting way. This doesn't mean that he evades the more doubtful issues and ambiguities regarding Machiavelli - he just has great judgement in spotting which are important and which are meaningless wrangles. I like reading this book almost as much as I like reading Machiavelli.

The Enneads for Dummies, 25 Oct 2007
The Enneads is a staggering vision of unity. The concept of the soul plays a central part. Here's my take at a very brief summation:

1. The source of the soul ... and of everything else lies in a oneness (the One) that can be inferred but never contacted. So the One isn't a personal God. It isn't aware of us, so it doesn't intervene in our affairs.

2. What the soul receives ... are the goodness and intelligence that emanated from the source and are the principal characteristics of our cosmos. We exist in a cosmos that is fundamentally good and intelligent and we can sense and see that.

3. The mixed blessing for the soul ... is embodiment in matter, which, on the positive side, provides a context for helping and for personal growth. In a world of many, the one soul appears as many souls.

4. The downside of that blessing ... are pain, isolation, and the suffering and distraction caused by attachment to material things. Evil is real but we're created in a fundamentally good and intelligent place and with powers to deal with it.

5. The way to live ... includes recognizing that the many souls are in fact one. Individuality is the reward and the price the soul paid to become embodied. Just as the One gives richly via its emanations, so we should give to the cosmos. Enjoy and feel awed by the beauty around and within you.

6. We're no small things ... but a product of the One, of its Intelligence and Soul... each of our souls linked to each other via that one soul.

7. Soul and body go well together. The individual body being material isn't permanent. But the soul and the cosmos are, so the soul re-enters material life via a new body.

Unlike some religious positions that may seem similar, all of this and more can be demonstrated in a rational presentation that begins with just a few stated assumptions. That's what you'll find in The Enneads, a culmination of centuries of ancient Greek philosophy. As much a treasure as a book can be.

This is an important book because-, 18 Aug 2007
it influenced 10 centuries of European Medieval thought, even though
no European had read it! But important Medieval writers and thinkers like St Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionyseus acted as conduits for his thought.

Plotinus borrowed from all the philosophies of the Classical and Ancient World. At the same time he placed great emphasis on the individual, so in this sense he is a kind of bridge between the modern and ancient worlds. Although his ideas are quarried by later Christian thinkers, Plotinus regards negative acts or behaviour as the product of a lack of intelligence, rather than the later Christian idea of evil itself being a kind of positive force. In fact pure intellect Plotinus regards as intrinsically good. It is this idea that becomes the foundation of Christian mysticism in the West, the idea that it is possible to know God through the intellect. God has three parts, the hightest of which is also a pure intelligence, according to Plotinus, who calls this highest part 'The Good.'

This book is really about the structure and order of Man, the Universe and Everything as it was seen in the late classical period, from a Platonist viewpoint. Interesting sections are on things like Astrology, then seen as a science: 'Are stars causes?'

One of the problems early Christians had is that the New Testament, unlike say Islam, does not provide a model of the Universe, a system ofmetaphysics or a detailed idea of what it is to be human, save in being sinful and requiring redemption. This book, like many others, was used as a source material by theologians such as St Thomas Aquinus, who were trying to construct an intellectual foundation around Christianity.

One of the problems people had in the past was not understanding biochemistry, of how matter can live, so they constructed a beautiful and interesting series of ideas about how souls enter and leave beings causing them to live or die.

One of the many interesting ideas here is how ideas themselves can have independent lives, as spirits as it were. This could be a forerunner of CG Jung's archetype theory of psychology.

This book is beautifully translated and very easy to read.

Great book, 18 Nov 2008
Most educated people would have heard of Socrates and how he used to debate intricate points of philosophy by constantly questioning the definitions of terms and how he was put on trial on trumped up charges. Most of what we know about Socrates comes from other works by Plato and Xenophon although Aristophanes seems to have depicted him in an unflattering light in one of his comedies.

A good solid introduction.

A great resource, 11 Apr 2008
Knowing Machiavelli only by reputation and starting a course of Renaissance study I found the amount of material available by and about him rather overwhelming. Having had great experiences with the OUP Very Short Introduction To series before I made this my starting point.

Skinner does a great job of condensing a significant amount of material into readily understandable, bite sized chunks. He focuses on three areas of his life, the writing of The Prince, the Discourses and his work as a Florentine historian. He attempts to understand the driving force of the man and his motivation in writing, particularly in relation to the key idea of virtus, which Machiavelli sees as a key quality in a leader, a successful state and a successful country.

I now feel prepared to tackle Machiavelli's work head on, with a great guide to help me. An excellent resource.

A useful introduction, though dense and lacking in structure, 07 Mar 2008
The Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press has a good reputation for presenting challenging subjects in an easily accessible manner. Quentin Skinner's contribution, "Machiavelli", charts the life, career and major works of one of the most famous figures of Renaissance Italy, a man whose theories have had great influence on modern political thought, but who has been much misrepresented.

On the whole this is a good, straightforward account of Machiavelli's life and works, and even though the material feels very densely presented, Skinner's style and argument are generally clear. He traces the development of Machiavelli's political thought, from both his contemporary exemplars and Roman models (authors such as Livy and Sallust), showing both how drew on these sources and how he diverged from them, at every stage backing up his arguments with examples from the texts. Unfortunately it is difficult to get a sense of perspective on Machiavelli, since we are offered little clue as to how other historians have responded to the man's work in the centuries since his death. It is disappointing, too, that Skinner does not, in the end, come to any real conclusions himself about the man or his ideas, or his continuing relevance in the modern world. As a result the book as a whole feels slightly lacking in structure.

For the casual reader, or someone reading about Machiavelli for the first time, the material may initially feel quite daunting or overly-academic. More space could have been devoted to explaining the world of Machiavelli and the socio-political situation of Renaissance Italy c. 1500, to root the reader in the period first of all. Notable is the omission of a political map of the peninsula, which might have helped in providing some context. Similarly, it would have been useful to have as reference a chronology of Machiavelli's life, together with the main political events of the time. On the other hand, Skinner provides a long list of further reading, so that it is possible to follow up some of his points, although many of these are articles in academic journals, suggesting that it is the student rather than the general reader who is his intended audience.

Everything considered, "Machiavelli" is a highly informative and comprehensive overview of the man's career, although the casual reader may find it quite hard to get to grips with.

The Machiavellian Reader, 03 Jun 2005
I suppose there is a certain irony in reading Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, for in doing so you indulge in the machiavellian trait that the means justify the end (or as Niccolo himself more eloquently puts it "though the deed accuses him, the results excuse him"). Ramming the history, context, treatise and fundamentals of Machiavellian philosophy into 100 pages is no mean feat. Notwithstanding the small writing.

After 100 pages of squinting you feel altogether more erudite, possibly confident enough to pub-challenge the use of the adjective 'machiavellian' as an inappropriate representation of the man's philosophy. You could lecture ad nauseam that Machiavelli preached, not that you should be duplicitous for the sake of duplicity, or immoral for the sake of immorality, but only as sensible strategies should the circumstances dictate. One in the eye for Cicero, Livy and his humanist pals. Seems pretty obvious to us rational, philisophically enlightened, media-educated children of Darwin. But to have said so to Machiavelli would probably have been an anachronism.

Power to Niccolo, the man spoke sense. Power to Mr Skinner, a virtuoso perfomance.

Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction Reviewed, 20 Nov 2003
Skinner’s contribution to the “Very Short Introduction” series of Oxford University Press serves the purpose for which the series is dedicated. It provides a brief, concise introduction to Machiavelli’s major political and historical works. A neophyte will find this book an invaluable beginning. Skinner adds a selective but useful bibliography, which permits students new to Machiavelli’s writings to further their studies. The humanist and historical frameworks too are sketched, as well as sufficient biographical details given for one to place Machiavelli in context. In keeping with the humanist tradition, it instructs and improves those who read it. I recommend this book because one learns by reading it and is, thereby, improved.

But I do not wholeheartedly endorse it because it fails to live up to one of Skinner’s hopes. He hopes that it might prove “of some interest to specialists in the field.” The author’s desire “to be of interest” leads him to state that he has “not altered” his “basic line of argument.” Machiavelli remains to him “essentially” an “exponent of a neo-classical form of humanist political thought” (preface). Neo-classical humanism was the milieu that provided Niccoló Machiavelli with his intellectual framework. He adopted, according to Skinner, both its forms and its principles.

The author also tells us, on the other hand, that Niccoló demonstrated “extraordinary originality in his attack on the prevailing moral assumptions of his age.” How can he both demonstrate “extraordinary originality” and be “an exponent” of something received? The difficulties of being both must be known to Skinner, because he informs us – in more than one place – that Niccoló “shatters” the humanist expectations that he had built up (see pp. 42 and 92). Niccoló goes out of his way, moreover, to assert his independence from the humanist and classical intellectual forms in Chapter XV of Il Principe. Perhaps a specialist would learn more if Skinner took that claim more seriously. Let us charitably assume that the conditions incumbent on writing a “very short introduction” have undermined the author’s capacity to justify adequately his conviction.

Mr. Skinner, also in his desire to say something to specialists, derides “Leo Strauss and his disciples” for their “unrepentant insistence” on passing judgment. Niccoló Machiavelli is in the traditional view “a teacher of evil.” Strauss takes pains to maintain that view. Skinner, on the other hand, dwells not on the examples used by Niccoló to illustrate his pivotal concept of “virtú.” For Skinner’s readers, virtú becomes palatable through its transfiguration into “moral flexibility.” Moral flexibility serves the maintenance and, far more importantly, the founding of a state. Niccoló’s virtú, however, shocks all but the most vitiated and obtuse, at least on first reading. We need merely reflect on the examples of Hannibal, Agathocles, Bagilioni, Alexander VI, and Caesar Borgia. Isn’t it better to ask why Niccoló wrote both what he did and how he did than deny the obvious?

Skinner is, however, very close to an important truth. If you want to understand Machiavelli, you must grasp his primary concern. That primary concern is the fate of his fatherland, which haunts every page of his writings. The fate of Niccoló’s first love causes him “to mull over the absurdities of this world.” Those absurdities eventually broke his spirit. Yet Niccoló’s reflections on “the goodness of his times” led him to see the requirements of politics. He came thereby to see its incompatibility with being a virtuous person. Virtuous, in the sense intended here, is the common, traditional sense of virtue. One is now prepared to understand Strauss’ twin assertions. The first, and by far the most famous, is that “[t]he problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.” The surface of Niccoló’s teaching is that one must sometimes do evil to maintain “one’s state.” Evil is not always required to be effective in politics, but only sometimes. Niccoló fixes on those atypical sometimes, I hasten to add, because he endeavors to cheat fortune.

Perhaps it is now easy to see how Niccoló came to be a substitute for the Devil. This is Strauss’ second assertion. The Devil is a fallen angel, or “possesses a perverted nobility of a very high order.” On his deathbed, he lampooned Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” with one of his own. Niccoló claimed to have dreamed that he saw two groups of men passing before him. The first were poorly attired, emaciated, claiming to be saints on their way to heaven. The second were regally attired and noble in bearing. Discussing the greatest themes of politics, they were ancient founders and political philosophers fated to hell. Niccoló opted to join them. He has no concern for his soul, because he loves his fatherland even more.

Yet Niccoló goes further than declaiming the weakness into which Catholicism led this world. He maligns ambitious leisure too. Niccoló seemingly reverses the ranking and alters the relationship between politics and wisdom as established previously in the tradition stretching back to Plato. Plato and Aristotle wrote to demonstrate that they could found entirely new regimes. But Niccoló places them below those who had become gods through founding actual regimes. The latter – real founders of existing and previously existing regimes – not only were capable but also were fortunate. Niccoló wishes, however, not only to demonstrate that he belongs with them in hell. He wishes to surpass them all, and with this realization we are tempted to use Milton in explaining the joke. Fortune can be beaten. The Devil too can be overcome. Revisiting the fertile fields found between the mountains, i.e., returning to Chapter XIV, is enough for you to touch what he truly is. It might do us all some good to invite Skinner and Strauss’ disciples to do the same.

The Best Book on Machiavelli?, 26 Jul 2003
Machiavelli inspires a never-ending stream of academic studies and biographies which violently disagree with one another. But it will be a brave author who will disagree with Quentin Skinner, who says more of interest in this small book than dozens of his predecessors combined. If you read this, along with Isaiah Berlin's essay on "The Originality of Machiavelli" and Sebastian de Grazia's biography, you can save yourself a decade or so of leafing through the chaff.

It's really amazing how Skinner writes on his subject with such precision given the difficulty others have had in pinning Machiavelli down. He has a genuine gift for explaining arcane academic principles in a simple, clear and interesting way. This doesn't mean that he evades the more doubtful issues and ambiguities regarding Machiavelli - he just has great judgement in spotting which are important and which are meaningless wrangles. I like reading this book almost as much as I like reading Machiavelli.

The Enneads for Dummies, 25 Oct 2007
The Enneads is a staggering vision of unity. The concept of the soul plays a central part. Here's my take at a very brief summation:

1. The source of the soul ... and of everything else lies in a oneness (the One) that can be inferred but never contacted. So the One isn't a personal God. It isn't aware of us, so it doesn't intervene in our affairs.

2. What the soul receives ... are the goodness and intelligence that emanated from the source and are the principal characteristics of our cosmos. We exist in a cosmos that is fundamentally good and intelligent and we can sense and see that.

3. The mixed blessing for the soul ... is embodiment in matter, which, on the positive side, provides a context for helping and for personal growth. In a world of many, the one soul appears as many souls.

4. The downside of that blessing ... are pain, isolation, and the suffering and distraction caused by attachment to material things. Evil is real but we're created in a fundamentally good and intelligent place and with powers to deal with it.

5. The way to live ... includes recognizing that the many souls are in fact one. Individuality is the reward and the price the soul paid to become embodied. Just as the One gives richly via its emanations, so we should give to the cosmos. Enjoy and feel awed by the beauty around and within you.

6. We're no small things ... but a product of the One, of its Intelligence and Soul... each of our souls linked to each other via that one soul.

7. Soul and body go well together. The individual body being material isn't permanent. But the soul and the cosmos are, so the soul re-enters material life via a new body.

Unlike some religious positions that may seem similar, all of this and more can be demonstrated in a rational presentation that begins with just a few stated assumptions. That's what you'll find in The Enneads, a culmination of centuries of ancient Greek philosophy. As much a treasure as a book can be.

This is an important book because-, 18 Aug 2007
it influenced 10 centuries of European Medieval thought, even though
no European had read it! But important Medieval writers and thinkers like St Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionyseus acted as conduits for his thought.

Plotinus borrowed from all the philosophies of the Classical and Ancient World. At the same time he placed great emphasis on the individual, so in this sense he is a kind of bridge between the modern and ancient worlds. Although his ideas are quarried by later Christian thinkers, Plotinus regards negative acts or behaviour as the product of a lack of intelligence, rather than the later Christian idea of evil itself being a kind of positive force. In fact pure intellect Plotinus regards as intrinsically good. It is this idea that becomes the foundation of Christian mysticism in the West, the idea that it is possible to know God through the intellect. God has three parts, the hightest of which is also a pure intelligence, according to Plotinus, who calls this highest part 'The Good.'

This book is really about the structure and order of Man, the Universe and Everything as it was seen in the late classical period, from a Platonist viewpoint. Interesting sections are on things like Astrology, then seen as a science: 'Are stars causes?'

One of the problems early Christians had is that the New Testament, unlike say Islam, does not provide a model of the Universe, a system ofmetaphysics or a detailed idea of what it is to be human, save in being sinful and requiring redemption. This book, like many others, was used as a source material by theologians such as St Thomas Aquinus, who were trying to construct an intellectual foundation around Christianity.

One of the problems people had in the past was not understanding biochemistry, of how matter can live, so they constructed a beautiful and interesting series of ideas about how souls enter and leave beings causing them to live or die.

One of the many interesting ideas here is how ideas themselves can have independent lives, as spirits as it were. This could be a forerunner of CG Jung's archetype theory of psychology.

This book is beautifully translated and very easy to read.

Great book, 18 Nov 2008
Most educated people would have heard of Socrates and how he used to debate intricate points of philosophy by constantly questioning the definitions of terms and how he was put on trial on trumped up charges. Most of what we know about Socrates comes from other works by Plato and Xenophon although Aristophanes seems to have depicted him in an unflattering light in one of his comedies.

A good solid introduction.

A must read for students of the history of science, 13 Oct 2002
Lynn White's seminal work is now regarded as one of the most widely read and influential works of historical scholarship in the twentieth century.
Well written, lucid, and to the point, the book is highly accessible.
In three short sections, White propounds his theory of profound technological change in Europe during the medieval period...and the effect this had on Europe's social and cultural fabric.
His first thesis is perhaps the best known: the argument that the formation of feudalism was made possible by the introdution of the stirrup into medieval Europe.
White's second section goes on to to show the importance of various agrarian innovations to the 'agricultural revolution' in medieval Europe.
His last section discusses the the growth in the use of 'power machinery' in the Middle Ages.
Readers should take note however: times have moved on since White, and our understanding of the history of technology in the medieval ages has advanced immeasurably (thanks, in no small part, to White). White's arguments on the Stirrup and the agricultural revolution have been widely critisized and to a large extent discredited.
The book, however, remains a classic in its field.

A book of scientific proportions, 10 Jan 2001
This book is one of the few books that really summarize medieval technology in comparison with social change without unneccessary details. There isn't a single useless paragraph, and although it is a rather dificult book to follow, it demonstrates how and why things took place where they took place (I won't give spoilers). I bought this book as reference material for a project and I am more than satisfied. It is rather difficult to encounter the subject matter outside of huge encyclopedias with so much detail and so substantiated. In the course of my research I've come up with few books that provide so much condensed knowledge, properly backed by historical evidence. I absolutely recommend it.

A great resource, 11 Apr 2008
Knowing Machiavelli only by reputation and starting a course of Renaissance study I found the amount of material available by and about him rather overwhelming. Having had great experiences with the OUP Very Short Introduction To series before I made this my starting point.

Skinner does a great job of condensing a significant amount of material into readily understandable, bite sized chunks. He focuses on three areas of his life, the writing of The Prince, the Discourses and his work as a Florentine historian. He attempts to understand the driving force of the man and his motivation in writing, particularly in relation to the key idea of virtus, which Machiavelli sees as a key quality in a leader, a successful state and a successful country.

I now feel prepared to tackle Machiavelli's work head on, with a great guide to help me. An excellent resource.

A useful introduction, though dense and lacking in structure, 07 Mar 2008
The Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press has a good reputation for presenting challenging subjects in an easily accessible manner. Quentin Skinner's contribution, "Machiavelli", charts the life, career and major works of one of the most famous figures of Renaissance Italy, a man whose theories have had great influence on modern political thought, but who has been much misrepresented.

On the whole this is a good, straightforward account of Machiavelli's life and works, and even though the material feels very densely presented, Skinner's style and argument are generally clear. He traces the development of Machiavelli's political thought, from both his contemporary exemplars and Roman models (authors such as Livy and Sallust), showing both how drew on these sources and how he diverged from them, at every stage backing up his arguments with examples from the texts. Unfortunately it is difficult to get a sense of perspective on Machiavelli, since we are offered little clue as to how other historians have responded to the man's work in the centuries since his death. It is disappointing, too, that Skinner does not, in the end, come to any real conclusions himself about the man or his ideas, or his continuing relevance in the modern world. As a result the book as a whole feels slightly lacking in structure.

For the casual reader, or someone reading about Machiavelli for the first time, the material may initially feel quite daunting or overly-academic. More space could have been devoted to explaining the world of Machiavelli and the socio-political situation of Renaissance Italy c. 1500, to root the reader in the period first of all. Notable is the omission of a political map of the peninsula, which might have helped in providing some context. Similarly, it would have been useful to have as reference a chronology of Machiavelli's life, together with the main political events of the time. On the other hand, Skinner provides a long list of further reading, so that it is possible to follow up some of his points, although many of these are articles in academic journals, suggesting that it is the student rather than the general reader who is his intended audience.

Everything considered, "Machiavelli" is a highly informative and comprehensive overview of the man's career, although the casual reader may find it quite hard to get to grips with.

The Machiavellian Reader, 03 Jun 2005
I suppose there is a certain irony in reading Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, for in doing so you indulge in the machiavellian trait that the means justify the end (or as Niccolo himself more eloquently puts it "though the deed accuses him, the results excuse him"). Ramming the history, context, treatise and fundamentals of Machiavellian philosophy into 100 pages is no mean feat. Notwithstanding the small writing.

After 100 pages of squinting you feel altogether more erudite, possibly confident enough to pub-challenge the use of the adjective 'machiavellian' as an inappropriate representation of the man's philosophy. You could lecture ad nauseam that Machiavelli preached, not that you should be duplicitous for the sake of duplicity, or immoral for the sake of immorality, but only as sensible strategies should the circumstances dictate. One in the eye for Cicero, Livy and his humanist pals. Seems pretty obvious to us rational, philisophically enlightened, media-educated children of Darwin. But to have said so to Machiavelli would probably have been an anachronism.

Power to Niccolo, the man spoke sense. Power to Mr Skinner, a virtuoso perfomance.

Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction Reviewed, 20 Nov 2003
Skinner’s contribution to the “Very Short Introduction” series of Oxford University Press serves the purpose for which the series is dedicated. It provides a brief, concise introduction to Machiavelli’s major political and historical works. A neophyte will find this book an invaluable beginning. Skinner adds a selective but useful bibliography, which permits students new to Machiavelli’s writings to further their studies. The humanist and historical frameworks too are sketched, as well as sufficient biographical details given for one to place Machiavelli in context. In keeping with the humanist tradition, it instructs and improves those who read it. I recommend this book because one learns by reading it and is, thereby, improved.

But I do not wholeheartedly endorse it because it fails to live up to one of Skinner’s hopes. He hopes that it might prove “of some interest to specialists in the field.” The author’s desire “to be of interest” leads him to state that he has “not altered” his “basic line of argument.” Machiavelli remains to him “essentially” an “exponent of a neo-classical form of humanist political thought” (preface). Neo-classical humanism was the milieu that provided Niccoló Machiavelli with his intellectual framework. He adopted, according to Skinner, both its forms and its principles.

The author also tells us, on the other hand, that Niccoló demonstrated “extraordinary originality in his attack on the prevailing moral assumptions of his age.” How can he both demonstrate “extraordinary originality” and be “an exponent” of something received? The difficulties of being both must be known to Skinner, because he informs us – in more than one place – that Niccoló “shatters” the humanist expectations that he had built up (see pp. 42 and 92). Niccoló goes out of his way, moreover, to assert his independence from the humanist and classical intellectual forms in Chapter XV of Il Principe. Perhaps a specialist would learn more if Skinner took that claim more seriously. Let us charitably assume that the conditions incumbent on writing a “very short introduction” have undermined the author’s capacity to justify adequately his conviction.

Mr. Skinner, also in his desire to say something to specialists, derides “Leo Strauss and his disciples” for their “unrepentant insistence” on passing judgment. Niccoló Machiavelli is in the traditional view “a teacher of evil.” Strauss takes pains to maintain that view. Skinner, on the other hand, dwells not on the examples used by Niccoló to illustrate his pivotal concept of “virtú.” For Skinner’s readers, virtú becomes palatable through its transfiguration into “moral flexibility.” Moral flexibility serves the maintenance and, far more importantly, the founding of a state. Niccoló’s virtú, however, shocks all but the most vitiated and obtuse, at least on first reading. We need merely reflect on the examples of Hannibal, Agathocles, Bagilioni, Alexander VI, and Caesar Borgia. Isn’t it better to ask why Niccoló wrote both what he did and how he did than deny the obvious?

Skinner is, however, very close to an important truth. If you want to understand Machiavelli, you must grasp his primary concern. That primary concern is the fate of his fatherland, which haunts every page of his writings. The fate of Niccoló’s first love causes him “to mull over the absurdities of this world.” Those absurdities eventually broke his spirit. Yet Niccoló’s reflections on “the goodness of his times” led him to see the requirements of politics. He came thereby to see its incompatibility with being a virtuous person. Virtuous, in the sense intended here, is the common, traditional sense of virtue. One is now prepared to understand Strauss’ twin assertions. The first, and by far the most famous, is that “[t]he problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.” The surface of Niccoló’s teaching is that one must sometimes do evil to maintain “one’s state.” Evil is not always required to be effective in politics, but only sometimes. Niccoló fixes on those atypical sometimes, I hasten to add, because he endeavors to cheat fortune.

Perhaps it is now easy to see how Niccoló came to be a substitute for the Devil. This is Strauss’ second assertion. The Devil is a fallen angel, or “possesses a perverted nobility of a very high order.” On his deathbed, he lampooned Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” with one of his own. Niccoló claimed to have dreamed that he saw two groups of men passing before him. The first were poorly attired, emaciated, claiming to be saints on their way to heaven. The second were regally attired and noble in bearing. Discussing the greatest themes of politics, they were ancient founders and political philosophers fated to hell. Niccoló opted to join them. He has no concern for his soul, because he loves his fatherland even more.

Yet Niccoló goes further than declaiming the weakness into which Catholicism led this world. He maligns ambitious leisure too. Niccoló seemingly reverses the ranking and alters the relationship between politics and wisdom as established previously in the tradition stretching back to Plato. Plato and Aristotle wrote to demonstrate that they could found entirely new regimes. But Niccoló places them below those who had become gods through founding actual regimes. The latter – real founders of existing and previously existing regimes – not only were capable but also were fortunate. Niccoló wishes, however, not only to demonstrate that he belongs with them in hell. He wishes to surpass them all, and with this realization we are tempted to use Milton in explaining the joke. Fortune can be beaten. The Devil too can be overcome. Revisiting the fertile fields found between the mountains, i.e., returning to Chapter XIV, is enough for you to touch what he truly is. It might do us all some good to invite Skinner and Strauss’ disciples to do the same.

The Best Book on Machiavelli?, 26 Jul 2003
Machiavelli inspires a never-ending stream of academic studies and biographies which violently disagree with one another. But it will be a brave author who will disagree with Quentin Skinner, who says more of interest in this small book than dozens of his predecessors combined. If you read this, along with Isaiah Berlin's essay on "The Originality of Machiavelli" and Sebastian de Grazia's biography, you can save yourself a decade or so of leafing through the chaff.

It's really amazing how Skinner writes on his subject with such precision given the difficulty others have had in pinning Machiavelli down. He has a genuine gift for explaining arcane academic principles in a simple, clear and interesting way. This doesn't mean that he evades the more doubtful issues and ambiguities regarding Machiavelli - he just has great judgement in spotting which are important and which are meaningless wrangles. I like reading this book almost as much as I like reading Machiavelli.

The Enneads for Dummies, 25 Oct 2007
The Enneads is a staggering vision of unity. The concept of the soul plays a central part. Here's my take at a very brief summation:

1. The source of the soul ... and of everything else lies in a oneness (the One) that can be inferred but never contacted. So the One isn't a personal God. It isn't aware of us, so it doesn't intervene in our affairs.

2. What the soul receives ... are the goodness and intelligence that emanated from the source and are the principal characteristics of our cosmos. We exist in a cosmos that is fundamentally good and intelligent and we can sense and see that.

3. The mixed blessing for the soul ... is embodiment in matter, which, on the positive side, provides a context for helping and for personal growth. In a world of many, the one soul appears as many souls.

4. The downside of that blessing ... are pain, isolation, and the suffering and distraction caused by attachment to material things. Evil is real but we're created in a fundamentally good and intelligent place and with powers to deal with it.

5. The way to live ... includes recognizing that the many souls are in fact one. Individuality is the reward and the price the soul paid to become embodied. Just as the One gives richly via its emanations, so we should give to the cosmos. Enjoy and feel awed by the beauty around and within you.

6. We're no small things ... but a product of the One, of its Intelligence and Soul... each of our souls linked to each other via that one soul.

7. Soul and body go well together. The individual body being material isn't permanent. But the soul and the cosmos are, so the soul re-enters material life via a new body.

Unlike some religious positions that may seem similar, all of this and more can be demonstrated in a rational presentation that begins with just a few stated assumptions. That's what you'll find in The Enneads, a culmination of centuries of ancient Greek philosophy. As much a treasure as a book can be.

This is an important book because-, 18 Aug 2007
it influenced 10 centuries of European Medieval thought, even though
no European had read it! But important Medieval writers and thinkers like St Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionyseus acted as conduits for his thought.

Plotinus borrowed from all the philosophies of the Classical and Ancient World. At the same time he placed great emphasis on the individual, so in this sense he is a kind of bridge between the modern and ancient worlds. Although his ideas are quarried by later Christian thinkers, Plotinus regards negative acts or behaviour as the product of a lack of intelligence, rather than the later Christian idea of evil itself being a kind of positive force. In fact pure intellect Plotinus regards as intrinsically good. It is this idea that becomes the foundation of Christian mysticism in the West, the idea that it is possible to know God through the intellect. God has three parts, the hightest of which is also a pure intelligence, according to Plotinus, who calls this highest part 'The Good.'

This book is really about the structure and order of Man, the Universe and Everything as it was seen in the late classical period, from a Platonist viewpoint. Interesting sections are on things like Astrology, then seen as a science: 'Are stars causes?'

One of the problems early Christians had is that the New Testament, unlike say Islam, does not provide a model of the Universe, a system ofmetaphysics or a detailed idea of what it is to be human, save in being sinful and requiring redemption. This book, like many others, was used as a source material by theologians such as St Thomas Aquinus, who were trying to construct an intellectual foundation around Christianity.

One of the problems people had in the past was not understanding biochemistry, of how matter can live, so they constructed a beautiful and interesting series of ideas about how souls enter and leave beings causing them to live or die.

One of the many interesting ideas here is how ideas themselves can have independent lives, as spirits as it were. This could be a forerunner of CG Jung's archetype theory of psychology.

This book is beautifully translated and very easy to read.

Great book, 18 Nov 2008
Most educated people would have heard of Socrates and how he used to debate intricate points of philosophy by constantly questioning the definitions of terms and how he was put on trial on trumped up charges. Most of what we know about Socrates comes from other works by Plato and Xenophon although Aristophanes seems to have depicted him in an unflattering light in one of his comedies.

A good solid introduction.

A must read for students of the history of science, 13 Oct 2002
Lynn White's seminal work is now regarded as one of the most widely read and influential works of historical scholarship in the twentieth century.
Well written, lucid, and to the point, the book is highly accessible.
In three short sections, White propounds his theory of profound technological change in Europe during the medieval period...and the effect this had on Europe's social and cultural fabric.
His first thesis is perhaps the best known: the argument that the formation of feudalism was made possible by the introdution of the stirrup into medieval Europe.
White's second section goes on to to show the importance of various agrarian innovations to the 'agricultural revolution' in medieval Europe.
His last section discusses the the growth in the use of 'power machinery' in the Middle Ages.
Readers should take note however: times have moved on since White, and our understanding of the history of technology in the medieval ages has advanced immeasurably (thanks, in no small part, to White). White's arguments on the Stirrup and the agricultural revolution have been widely critisized and to a large extent discredited.
The book, however, remains a classic in its field.

A book of scientific proportions, 10 Jan 2001
This book is one of the few books that really summarize medieval technology in comparison with social change without unneccessary details. There isn't a single useless paragraph, and although it is a rather dificult book to follow, it demonstrates how and why things took place where they took place (I won't give spoilers). I bought this book as reference material for a project and I am more than satisfied. It is rather difficult to encounter the subject matter outside of huge encyclopedias with so much detail and so substantiated. In the course of my research I've come up with few books that provide so much condensed knowledge, properly backed by historical evidence. I absolutely recommend it.

Stoicism explained, 03 Jan 2006
This book which contains three major works of seneca and several of his letters and notes is clear and easy to understand, a great book for those just finding out about Stoic philosophy or those who want an in depth anaylsis of seneca's work and influnce upon Stoic thought.

A great resource, 11 Apr 2008
Knowing Machiavelli only by reputation and starting a course of Renaissance study I found the amount of material available by and about him rather overwhelming. Having had great experiences with the OUP Very Short Introduction To series before I made this my starting point.

Skinner does a great job of condensing a significant amount of material into readily understandable, bite sized chunks. He focuses on three areas of his life, the writing of The Prince, the Discourses and his work as a Florentine historian. He attempts to understand the driving force of the man and his motivation in writing, particularly in relation to the key idea of virtus, which Machiavelli sees as a key quality in a leader, a successful state and a successful country.

I now feel prepared to tackle Machiavelli's work head on, with a great guide to help me. An excellent resource.

A useful introduction, though dense and lacking in structure, 07 Mar 2008
The Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press has a good reputation for presenting challenging subjects in an easily accessible manner. Quentin Skinner's contribution, "Machiavelli", charts the life, career and major works of one of the most famous figures of Renaissance Italy, a man whose theories have had great influence on modern political thought, but who has been much misrepresented.

On the whole this is a good, straightforward account of Machiavelli's life and works, and even though the material feels very densely presented, Skinner's style and argument are generally clear. He traces the development of Machiavelli's political thought, from both his contemporary exemplars and Roman models (authors such as Livy and Sallust), showing both how drew on these sources and how he diverged from them, at every stage backing up his arguments with examples from the texts. Unfortunately it is difficult to get a sense of perspective on Machiavelli, since we are offered little clue as to how other historians have responded to the man's work in the centuries since his death. It is disappointing, too, that Skinner does not, in the end, come to any real conclusions himself about the man or his ideas, or his continuing relevance in the modern world. As a result the book as a whole feels slightly lacking in structure.

For the casual reader, or someone reading about Machiavelli for the first time, the material may initially feel quite daunting or overly-academic. More space could have been devoted to explaining the world of Machiavelli and the socio-political situation of Renaissance Italy c. 1500, to root the reader in the period first of all. Notable is the omission of a political map of the peninsula, which might have helped in providing some context. Similarly, it would have been useful to have as reference a chronology of Machiavelli's life, together with the main political events of the time. On the other hand, Skinner provides a long list of further reading, so that it is possible to follow up some of his points, although many of these are articles in academic journals, suggesting that it is the student rather than the general reader who is his intended audience.

Everything considered, "Machiavelli" is a highly informative and comprehensive overview of the man's career, although the casual reader may find it quite hard to get to grips with.

The Machiavellian Reader, 03 Jun 2005
I suppose there is a certain irony in reading Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, for in doing so you indulge in the machiavellian trait that the means justify the end (or as Niccolo himself more eloquently puts it "though the deed accuses him, the results excuse him").