Harvey Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders. Ithaca, N.Y., 2001.

Overview:

–  Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders is the only full-length interpretive study on Machiavelli’s controversial and ambiguous work, Discourses on Livy. These discourses, considered by some to be Machiavelli’s most important work, are thoroughly explained in a chapter-by-chapter commentary by Harvey C. Mansfield, one of the world’s foremost interpreters of this remarkable philosopher.

Mansfield’s aim is to discern Machiavelli’s intention in writing the book: he argues that Machiavelli wanted to introduce new modes and orders in political philosophy in order to make himself the founder of modern politics. Mansfield maintains that Machiavelli deliberately concealed part of his intentions so that only the most perceptive reader could see beneath the surface of the text and understand the whole of his book. Previously out of print, Mansfield’s penetrating study brings to light the hidden thoughts lurking in the details of the Discourses on Livy to inform and challenge its readers at every step along the way.

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