Machiavelli's Radicalism

Paper Summary:

Niccolo Machiavelli is often credited with either advocating republicanism or despotism. This paper argues that he was first and foremost advocating radical revolution for a potential Italian state. By comparing Machiavelli's writings in "The Discourses" and "The Prince" with the works of Max Weber, Freidrich Nietzshe, Vladimir Lenin and Napoleon Bonaparte, this paper displays the radicalism advocated in his 16th century works. Furthermore, it links an important level of influence between Machiavelli and the aforementioned authors.

From the Paper:

"The creation of a nation-state is the first obstacle in implementing Machiavelli's next more explicit goal, the end of reliance upon foreign mercenaries. As implied, only an Italian state could provide the resources needed to field the manpower requirement to shift from mercenaries to citizen-militias. Machiavelli's ideas about the utility, and experience during the Florentine Republic, of implementing citizen-militia armies was a relatively new notion in Europe. While a shift from medieval knightly warfare began to occur across the continent prior to Machiavelli's writings, the contemporary idea of an entirely conscripted citizen-militias appears to be relatively original. Machiavelli's assumptions seemed logical after his observation of the contemporary Italian situation in which mercenary armies have so defined peninsular warfare. These armies were treated as independent actors and therefore developed new customary rules of engagement. This left the peninsula at a severe disadvantage when it encountered the armies of the other European nation states."

More papers on Machiavelli's Radicalism:

• Essay # 4621 : "Playing Dirty - Machiavelli's 'The Prince'"
• Research Paper # 64050 : "The Prince" and "Utopia"
• Analytical Essay # 89968 : "Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli"

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