In Poul Anderson's Murder In Black Letter, Robert Kintyre is a Renaissance historian. Thus, Anderson's knowledge of history will yet again influence the plot of one of his novels.
Machiavelli is quoted at least twice:
"He who does not choose the path of good, chooses to take the path of evil," said Machiavelli's Discourses...
-copied from Chapter 4 (see the above link).
'... the best fortress is to be found in the love of the people.'
-copied from Chapter 2.
From this point, Anderson fans can delve further into Macchiavelli if they are so inclined.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I have read both of Machiavelli's primary works: THE PRINCE and THE DISCOURSES. With the former being briefer and more "popular" in its style. THE DISCOURSES is more of a philosophical treatise, deeper and more thoroughly thought out, but inevitably not as "easy" to read as THE PRINCE.
Ad astra! Sean
Of course, there's also the chapter: On Whether It Is Better To Be Loved, Or Feared.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Which only goes to show it's high time I reread THE PRINCE, if only because the title of that chapter is so fascinating!
Ad astra! Sean
Machiavelli comes to the conclusion that it's better to be feared (though both is preferable when possible) because love is fickle and can be withheld at will, while you can generally force people to feel fear, so it's up to you, not them.
I know that there are some statements of Mchiavelli's that I should disagree with and this has to be one of them. Of course, he was talking about what gets results in certain circumstances but let's change the circumstances.
Post a Comment