A review by slydessertfox
Discourses on Livy by Niccolò Machiavelli

5.0

Machiavelli is as amoral here as he famously is in the prince. He's pragmatic to an unnerving degree and tries to maintain a detached, objective neutrality in his observations. This is a much more sophisticated detailing of Machiavelli's whole political philosophy than the Prince-ultimately he believes monarchy is unworkable and that a well organized republic is the ideal form of government, and spends the bulk of the work outlining what he thinks that ideal state looks like and how and why most states fail in one way or another.

It's an amazing, thought provoking read. Discourses made a great contribution to Republican theory that influenced theorists later on in the enlightenment, along with its contribution to exposing the nature of political tyranny. Well worth reading.