Machiavelli In Context

Learn realism: Dominant IR theory, from ancient Greece to today, power, anarchy, human nature, security, world examples!

An essential, comprehensive, and accessible guide to the life and works of Machiavelli.

In the fifteenth-century republic of Florence, political power resided in the hands of middle-class merchants, a few wealthy families, and powerful craftsmen's guilds. The intensity of Florentine factionalism and the frequent alterations in its political institutions gave Renaissance thinkers ample opportunities to inquire into the nature of political legitimacy and the relationship between authority and its social context.