Review Essay: For the People: Deepening the Democratic Turn in Machiavelli Studies

• Author: Katherine M. Robiadek
• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Date: 01 August 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0090591720976115
• Subject Matter: Review Essays

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591720976115

Political Theory

2021, Vol. 49(4) 686 –699

© The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0090591720976115

journals.sagepub.com/home/ptx

Review Essays

Review Essay: For the

People: Deepening the

Democratic Turn in

Machiavelli Studies

Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspect Engagements, and the Virtue of Populist

Politics, by John P. McCormick. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. 288 pp.

Machiavelli in Tumult: The Discourses on Livy and the Origins of Political Conflictualism,

by Gabriele Pedullà. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 284 pp.

Machiavelli and the Politics of Democratic Innovation, by Christopher Holman.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. 320 pp.

Reviewed by: Katherine M. Robiadek, Department of Political Science, Hood College,

Frederick, MD, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0090591720976115

Influential historian Felix Gilbert keenly noted that “there has been no gen-

eration since the time of the Renaissance which has not found some aspect of

Machiavelli’s writings repulsive or prophetic, puzzling or revealing.”1

Gilbert’s claim reflects the challenge faced by scholarly readers when dealing

with Machiavelli’s rhetorical acuity, literary prowess, and historiographic

maneuvering alongside his ethical reflections and claims to theoretical nov-

elty. Indeed, Machiavelli introduces his Discourses on Livy by claiming to

blaze a difficult intellectual trail to find new modes and orders in politics.

Such an enterprise, he says, is as potentially dangerous as physical explora-

tion in search of “unknown waters and lands”—leaving him and his legacy

vulnerable to the vitriol of envious or disapproving detractors.2 Given such

similar claims throughout his works, scholars across disciplines have con-

tinuously debated the real “originality” of Machiavelli, to use Isaiah Berlin’s

formulation.3

Three recent monographs notably address the relevance of Machiavelli’s

originality for the twenty-first century. Each work directly confronts the

Florentine’s approach to writing while revealing his political thought as

effectively anti-elitist. Their authors’ collective claim for Machiavelli’s origi-

nality on such terms positions them as strong proponents of a now prominent

democratic turn in Machiavelli studies. Specifically, John P. McCormick’s

Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspect Engagements, and the

976115PTXXXX10.1177/0090591720976115Political TheoryBook Review

book-review2020