Unconventional.… Benner argues that in turbulent, violent world, Machiavelli’s most consistent advice favoured principle, restraint and respect for the rule of law, even in The Prince.… Compelling.Įrica Benner convincingly argues there was a great deal more to Machiavelli.… She interweaves his own words with those of his contemporaries, as well as setting him in the context of his world. In this tightly composed narrative of Machiavelli’s life and works, Benner argues that The Prince is a work of secret subversion, using irony and beguilement to advance a staunchly republican message.… A gripping portrait of a brilliant political thinker, who understood the dangers of authoritarianism and looked for ways to curb them even though independent speech had become impossible. Lively, compulsively readable, unshowily erudite.Ī ripping read.… fascinating, charming, enjoyably unorthodox.
Drawing on his letters, political writings, hard-hitting satirical dramas, and conversations with kings and popes, Be Like the Fox reveals Machiavelli as an unlikely hero for our times. Forced out of politics and prevented from speaking freely, Machiavelli had to use his skills of foxlike dissimulation to defend democracy in an era of tyrannical princes. But despite his heroic efforts, the Medici soon swept back into power. Machiavelli dedicated his life to this struggle for freedom. In Be Like the Fox, Erica Benner takes us back to Renaissance Florence, where newly liberated citizens fought to build a free republic after the Medici princes were exiled. In the five hundred years since he wrote The Prince, Machiavelli’s name has been linked to tyranny and the doctrine that “the ends justify the means.” But that is not what he stood for. “Remarkable, engaging.… Be Like the Fox can be read with pleasure by anyone interested in the craft of politics and the life of ideas.”- New York Times Book Review
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