Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.  Machiavelli’s Virtue. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

From the publisher:

“Uniting thirty years of authoritative scholarship by a master of textual detail, Machiavelli’s Virtue is a comprehensive statement on the founder of modern politics. Harvey Mansfield reveals the role of sects in Machiavelli’s politics, his advice on how to rule indirectly, and the ultimately partisan character of his project, and shows him to be the founder of such modern and diverse institutions as the impersonal state and the energetic executive. Accessible and elegant, this groundbreaking interpretation explains the puzzles and reveals the ambition of Machiavelli’s thought.”