The Machiavellian Moment - Revised Edition

Originally published in 1975, The Machiavellian Moment remains a landmark of historical and political thought. Celebrated historian J.G.A. Pocock looks at the consequences for modern historical and social consciousness arising from the ideal of the classical republic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy. Pocock shows that Machiavelli's prime emphasis was on the moment in which the republic confronts the problem of its own instability in time, which Pocock calls the "Machiavellian moment." After examining this problem in the works of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Giannotti, Pocock turns to the revival of republican ideology in Puritan England and in Revolutionary and Federalist America. He argues that the American Revolution can be considered the last great act of civic humanism of the Renaissance and he relates the origins of modern historicism to the clash between civic, Christian, and commercial values in eighteenth-century thought. This Princeton Classics edition of The Machiavellian Moment features a new introduction by Richard Whatmore.

About the author

J.G.A. Pocock
With a new introduction by Richard Whatmore

Product details

• Authors: J. G. A. Pocock, John Greville Agard Pocock
• Assisted by: Richard Whatmore (Introduction), Whatmore Richard (Introduction)
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.2016
• EAN: 9780691172231
• ISBN: 978-0-691-17223-1
• No. of pages: 664
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 40 mm
• Series: Princeton Classics; Princeton Classics
• Subjects: Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; History of Ideas, PHILOSOPHY / Social, PHILOSOPHY / Political, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Constitutions, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, HISTORY / Social History, Social & political philosophy, Political science & theory, social and political philosophy, Political science and theory, Constitution: government & the state, Constitution: government and the state