DOCSLIB.ORG

America's Machiavellian Moment And

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
America's Machiavellian Moment And WHERE DID THE FOUNDERS GET THEIR IDEAS? America’s Machiavellian Moment and the Origins of the Atlantic Republican Tradition WALTER A. MCDOUGALL FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. © 2018 by the Foreign Policy Research Institute COVER: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA at Independence Hall. Adobe Stock July 2018 FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE MISSION The Foreign Policy Research Institute is dedicated to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the foreign policy and national security challenges facing the United States. It seeks to educate the public, teach teachers, train students, and offer ideas to advance U.S. national interests based on a nonpartisan, geopolitical perspective that illuminates contemporary international affairs through the lens of history, geography, and culture. EDUCATING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC: FPRI was founded on the premise than an informed and educated citizenry is paramount for the U.S. to conduct a coherent foreign policy. Today, we live in a world of unprecedented complexity and ever-changing threats, and as we make decisions regarding the nation’s foreign policy, the stakes could not be higher. FPRI offers insights to help the public understand this volatile world by publishing research, hosting conferences, and holding dozens of public events and lectures each year. PREPARING TEACHERS: Unique among think tanks, FPRI offers professional development for high school teachers through its Madeleine and W.W. Keen Butcher History Institute, a series of intensive weekend-long conferences on selected topics in U.S. and world history and international relations. These nationally known programs equip educators to bring lessons of a new richness to students across the nation. TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION: At FPRI, we are proud to have played a role in providing students – whether in high school, college, or graduate school – with a start in the fields of international relations, policy analysis, and public service. Summer interns – and interns throughout the year – gain experience in research, editing, writing, public speaking, and critical thinking. OFFERING IDEAS: We count among our ranks over 120 affiliated scholars located throughout the nation and the world. They are open-minded, ruthlessly honest, and proudly independent. In the past year, they have appeared in well over 100 different media venues- locally, nationally and internationally. WHERE DID THE FOUNDERS GET THEIR IDEAS? America’s Machiavellian Moment and the Origins of the Atlantic Republican Tradition This essay is based on the First Annual Ginsburg-Satell Lecture on American Character and Identity delivered on May 15, 2018, hosted and co-sponsored by the Museum of the American Revolution. By: Walter A. McDougall Walter A. McDougall is the Ginsburg-Satell Chair of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West. He is also Co-Chair of FPRI’s Madeleine and W.W. Keen Butcher History Institute and the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. His honors include a Pulitzer Prize, election to the Society of American Historians, and appointment to the Library of Congress Council of Scholars. After service in the U.S. Army artillery during the Vietnam War, McDougall took a PhD under world historian William H. McNeill at the University of Chicago (1974). The following year he was hired by the University of California, Berkeley, and taught there until 1988, when he was offered the chair at Penn. His articles and columns have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Commentary, and other national publications. An unabashed generalist, his books range from France’s Rhineland Diplomacy 1914-1924: The Last Bid for a Balance of Power in Europe (1978), and …the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (1985), to Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific From Magellan to MacArthur (1992), Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 (1997), Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History 1585-1828 (2004), and Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877 (2008), which was chosen by the Athenaeum of Philadelphia as best book of the year by a local author. His latest book is The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How American Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest (Yale University Press, 2016). American Myths: The Strange Career Hence, “exceptionalism” is more trouble than of “American Exceptionalism” it’s worth: it either means nothing or altogether too much. But the principal reason to banish What does it mean to speak of American the term from historical discourse is that Exceptionalism? If it just means unique, then the moniker didn’t even exist until the mid- th the claim is unexceptional because no two 20 century! No Puritan colonist, founding th countries are alike. If it means Americans Patriot, Civil War statesman, 19 century believe their great country is special, then poet, pastor, or propagandist ever invoked the again that’s nothing exceptional because term. To be sure, Alexis de Tocqueville called all great nations cherish national myths. If it America’s geography exceptional insofar as means Americans are exceptionally virtuous it was separated from Europe, and German given their devotion to liberty, equality, sociologist Werner Sombart thought American justice, prosperity, social mobility, and society an exception to Europe’s rules in that peace, then ipso facto they have also been Socialism had little appeal for workers in the exceptionally vicious for having fallen so short United States. But neither wrote of “American of those ideals. If it means that Americans are exceptionalism.” exempted from the laws of entropy because— as Bismarck reportedly quipped—“God looks And the first ones who did—Pope Leo XIII after fools, drunks, and the United States of in the 1890s and American Communist Jay America,” then such exceptionalism can only Lovestone in the 1930s—used exceptionalism be proven sub specie aeternitatis. Indeed, the as a term of opprobium. Not until the 1950s very illusion that one’s nation is under divine did Max Lerner, then Daniel Boorstin and many dispensation may perversely inspire the pride more authors turn American Exceptionalism that goeth before a fall (“thou shalt not tempt into a badge of honor and trace its roots to the Lord thy God”) or the many bad ends to Puritan New England. which reckless adolescents are prone. Finally, if Exceptionalism means that its “indispensable” Finally, Presidents John F. Kennedy and status renders the United States exempt from Ronald Reagan made it a benign household the rules of behavior it makes and enforces phrase in order to exhort Americans to victory on other nations, then enemies, neutrals, and in the Cold War. But its malign implications allies alike are sure to push back. became apparent after the Cold War when Americans pretended their exceptional values and institutions ought to become universal, whether or not other cultures wanted them. So what if the ur-historical claims made for American Exceptionalism amount to a civil religious myth? Don’t the truths they symbolize about Americans’ New World character remain valid? Not really, because common sense tells us New Worlds cannot baptize themselves! Only people from a self-conscious Old World can conjure a New World, which is exactly what happened in the centuries since 1492. As a British skeptic has observed, “Not even the Puritans were impelled by a unique or exceptional American impulse. On the Alexis de Tocqueville contrary, they were products of European 1 education, European culture, European piety, Rabbi Sacks has also explained why many and were engaged in a great European quarrel English scholars in the mid-17th century called the Protestant Reformation.” Some 140 suddenly became eager to learn Hebrew and years later, representatives of the American read rabbinical midrash literature. They wanted colonies did gather in Philadelphia to reject to know whether the Bible ordained monarchy European rule, but the principles they invoked or condemned it, in which case Parliament’s were “the beliefs of the English Revolution and Puritan rebellion against King Charles I in the Whig tradition, in the English, Scottish, the 1640s was God’s will. In Deuteronomy and French Enlightenments, and in the ancient 17, Moses prophesies that the Israelites will principles of English Common Law – in short, eventually desire a king, and he warns them in the core beliefs of a European civilization.” to appoint only kings chosen by the Lord who adhere strictly to the law. Evidently, therefore, Historians have in fact dug deeply into the the Lord does permit monarchy. But in 1 political theories of early modern Britain Samuel, chapter 8, the prophet is angered when and unearthed the ideas that led, in the the Israelites demand a king “so as to be like all fullness of time, to the American Founding. the nations.” The Lord laments this because it One familiar source is the Bible, especially is He whom the people have rejected. Yet, He the Hebrew Republicanism mandated in the instructs Samuel to anoint for them a king.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Mill and Pettit on Freedom, Domination, and Freedom-As-Domination
    Prolegomena 18 (1) 2019: 27–50 doi: 10 .26362/20190102 Mill and Pettit on Freedom, Domination, and Freedom-as-Domination Tim Beaumont School of Foreign Languages, Shenzhen University, Guangdong, P .R . China beaumonttim@hotmail .com ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE – RECEIVED: 29/11/18 ACCEPTED: 11/04/19 abstract: Pettit endorses a ‘republican’ conception of social freedom of the person as consisting of a state of non-domination, and takes this to refute Mill’s ‘liberal’ claim that non-domineering but coercive interference can compromise social freedom of choice . This paper argues that Pettit’s interpretation is true to the extent that Mill believes that the legitimate, non-arbitrary and just coercion of would-be dominators, for the sake of preventing them from dominating others, can render them unfree to choose to do so without rendering them socially unfree (qua dominated) persons in their own right . However, contra Pettit, Mill is correct to reject the ‘republican’ view for at least two reasons . Firstly, it enables him to avoid commitment to the implausi- ble implication that would-be dominators who sincerely deny any interest in a shared system of basic liberties are automatically rendered unfree persons by the coercion necessary to uphold such a system . Secondly, it enables him to avoid begging the question against ‘immoralists’ like Nietzsche, whose opposition to systems of recip- rocal non-domination is at least partly motivated by the losses of social freedom of choice they entail for those they deem to be worthy of dominating others . key words: Domination, freedom, liberalism, liberty, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Philip Pettit, republicanism .
    [Show full text]
  • The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition Pdf
    FREE THE MACHIAVELLIAN MOMENT: FLORENTINE POLITICAL THOUGHT AND THE ATLANTIC REPUBLICAN TRADITION PDF John Greville Agard Pocock | 640 pages | 16 Feb 2003 | Princeton University Press | 9780691114729 | English | New Jersey, United States The Atlantic Republican Tradition: The Republic of the Seven Provinces Skip to search form Skip to main content You are currently offline. Some features of the site may not work correctly. DOI: Mansfield and J. MansfieldJ. Pocock suggests that Machiavelli's prime emphasis was on the moment in which the republic confronts the problem of its own instability in time, and which he calls the "Machiavellian moment. View PDF. Save to Library. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition Alert. Launch Research Feed. Share This Paper. Rosemarie Zagarri Fortescue and the Political Theory of dominium. Burns Ashley Citation Type. Has PDF. Publication Type. More Filters. Morals, Manners, and the Republican Mother. Research Feed. Open Access. British Politics and the Demise of the Roman Republic: — Machiavelli Against Republicanism. The Cambridge history of political thought, References Publications referenced by this paper. History and the concept of time. History and Ideology in the English Revolution. Related Papers. Abstract 1, Citations 2 References Related Papers. By clicking accept or continuing to use the site, you agree to the terms outlined in our Privacy PolicyTerms of Serviceand Dataset License. | The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican The conference avoided sterile disputations, but—as is common and indeed healthy on such occasions—the subject with which it had dealt was rather discovered in retrospect than agreed upon in advance.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Jefferson and the Ideology of Democratic Schooling
    Thomas Jefferson and the Ideology of Democratic Schooling James Carpenter (Binghamton University) Abstract I challenge the traditional argument that Jefferson’s educational plans for Virginia were built on mod- ern democratic understandings. While containing some democratic features, especially for the founding decades, Jefferson’s concern was narrowly political, designed to ensure the survival of the new republic. The significance of this piece is to add to the more accurate portrayal of Jefferson’s impact on American institutions. Submit your own response to this article Submit online at democracyeducationjournal.org/home Read responses to this article online http://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol21/iss2/5 ew historical figures have undergone as much advocate of public education in the early United States” (p. 280). scrutiny in the last two decades as has Thomas Heslep (1969) has suggested that Jefferson provided “a general Jefferson. His relationship with Sally Hemings, his statement on education in republican, or democratic society” views on Native Americans, his expansionist ideology and his (p. 113), without distinguishing between the two. Others have opted suppressionF of individual liberties are just some of the areas of specifically to connect his ideas to being democratic. Williams Jefferson’s life and thinking that historians and others have reexam- (1967) argued that Jefferson’s impact on our schools is pronounced ined (Finkelman, 1995; Gordon- Reed, 1997; Kaplan, 1998). because “democracy and education are interdependent” and But his views on education have been unchallenged. While his therefore with “education being necessary to its [democracy’s] reputation as a founding father of the American republic has been success, a successful democracy must provide it” (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections on Russell Kirk Lee Trepanier Saginaw Valley State University
    Russell Kirk: A Centennial Symposium Reflections on Russell Kirk Lee Trepanier Saginaw Valley State University A century has passed since the birth of Russell Kirk (1918-94), one of the principal founders of the post-World War II conservative revival in the United States.1 This symposium examines Kirk’s legacy with a view to his understanding of constitutional law and the American Founding. But before we examine these essays, it is worth a moment to review Kirk’s life, thought, and place in American conservatism. Russell Kirk was born and raised in Michigan and obtained his B.A. in history at Michigan State University and his M.A. at Duke Univer- sity, where he studied John Randolph of Roanoke and discovered the writings of Edmund Burke.2 His book Randolph of Roanoke: A Study in Conservative Thought (1951) would endure as one of his most important LEE TREPANIER is Professor of Political Science at Saginaw Valley State University. He is also the editor of Lexington Books’ series “Politics, Literature, and Film” and of the aca- demic website VoegelinView. 1 I would like to thank the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville for sponsoring a panel related to this symposium at the 2018 American Political Science Conference and Zachary German for his constructive comments on these papers. I also would like to thank Richard Avramenko of the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Saginaw Valley State University for supporting my sabbatical, which enabled me to write this article and organize this symposium for Humanitas.
    [Show full text]
  • Is Italy an “Atlantic” Country?
    Is Italy an “Atlantic” Country? Marco Mariano IS ITALY AN “ATLANTIC” COUNTRY?* [Italians] have always flourished under a strong hand, whether Caesar’s or Hildebrand’s, Cavour’s or Crispi’s. That is because they are not a people like ourselves or the English or the Germans, loving order and regulation and government for their own sake....When his critics accuse [Mussolini] of unconstitutionality they only recommend him the more to a highly civilized but naturally lawless people. (Anne O’ Hare McCormick, New York Times Magazine, July 22, 1923) In this paper I will try to outline the emergence of the idea of Atlantic Community (from now on AC) during and in the aftermath of World War II and the peculiar, controversial place of Italy in the AC framework. Both among American policymakers and in public discourse, especially in the press, AC came to define a transatlantic space including basically North American and Western European countries, which supposedly shared political and economic principles and institutions (liberal democracy, individual rights and the rule of law, free market and free trade), cultural traditions (Christianity and, more generally, “Western civilization”) and, consequently, national interests. While the preexisting idea of Western civilization was defined mainly in cultural- historical terms and did not imply any institutional obligation, now the impeding threat of the cold war and the confrontation with the Communist block demanded the commitment to be part of a “community” with shared beliefs and needs, in which every single member is responsible for the safety and prosperity of all the other members. The obvious political counterpart of such a discourse on Euro-American relations was the birth of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on April 4, 1949.
    [Show full text]
  • Republican Citizenship Richard Dagger University of Richmond, [email protected]
    University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Political Science Faculty Publications Political Science 2002 Republican Citizenship Richard Dagger University of Richmond, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/polisci-faculty-publications Part of the American Politics Commons, and the Political Theory Commons Recommended Citation Dagger, Richard. "Republican Citizenship." In Handbook of Citizenship Studies, edited by Engin F. Isin and Bryan S. Turner, 145-57. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2002. This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Political Science at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 9 Republican Citizenship RICHARD DAGGER To speak of republican citizenship is to risk There might also be no need for this confusion, at least in the United States, chapter if it were not for the revival of where it is often necessary to explain that scholarly interest in republicanism in recent one is referring to 'small-r' republicanism years. Such a revival has definitely rather than a position taken by the Republi­ occurred, though, and occurred simultane­ can Party. But just as one may be a democrat ously with a renewed interest in citizenship. without being a Democrat, so one may be a This coincidence suggests that republican republican without being a Republican. The citizenship is well worth our attention, not ideas of democracy and the republic are far only for purposes of historical understand­ older than any political party and far richer ing but also as a way of thinking about than any partisan label can convey - rich citizenship in the twenty-first century.
    [Show full text]
  • Online Media and the 2016 US Presidential Election
    Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Faris, Robert M., Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling, Nikki Bourassa, Ethan Zuckerman, and Yochai Benkler. 2017. Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Research Paper. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33759251 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA AUGUST 2017 PARTISANSHIP, Robert Faris Hal Roberts PROPAGANDA, & Bruce Etling Nikki Bourassa DISINFORMATION Ethan Zuckerman Yochai Benkler Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is the result of months of effort and has only come to be as a result of the generous input of many people from the Berkman Klein Center and beyond. Jonas Kaiser and Paola Villarreal expanded our thinking around methods and interpretation. Brendan Roach provided excellent research assistance. Rebekah Heacock Jones helped get this research off the ground, and Justin Clark helped bring it home. We are grateful to Gretchen Weber, David Talbot, and Daniel Dennis Jones for their assistance in the production and publication of this study. This paper has also benefited from contributions of many outside the Berkman Klein community. The entire Media Cloud team at the Center for Civic Media at MIT’s Media Lab has been essential to this research.
    [Show full text]
  • Hillary Clinton's Campaign Was Undone by a Clash of Personalities
    64 Hillary Clinton’s campaign was undone by a clash of personalities more toxic than anyone imagined. E-mails and memos— published here for the first time—reveal the backstabbing and conflicting strategies that produced an epic meltdown. BY JOSHUA GREEN The Front-Runner’s Fall or all that has been written and said about Hillary Clin- e-mail feuds was handed over. (See for yourself: much of it is ton’s epic collapse in the Democratic primaries, one posted online at www.theatlantic.com/clinton.) Fissue still nags. Everybody knows what happened. But Two things struck me right away. The first was that, outward we still don’t have a clear picture of how it happened, or why. appearances notwithstanding, the campaign prepared a clear The after-battle assessments in the major newspapers and strategy and did considerable planning. It sweated the large newsweeklies generally agreed on the big picture: the cam- themes (Clinton’s late-in-the-game emergence as a blue-collar paign was not prepared for a lengthy fight; it had an insuf- champion had been the idea all along) and the small details ficient delegate operation; it squandered vast sums of money; (campaign staffers in Portland, Oregon, kept tabs on Monica and the candidate herself evinced a paralyzing schizophrenia— Lewinsky, who lived there, to avoid any surprise encounters). one day a shots-’n’-beers brawler, the next a Hallmark Channel The second was the thought: Wow, it was even worse than I’d mom. Through it all, her staff feuded and bickered, while her imagined! The anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even husband distracted.
    [Show full text]
  • Executive Order No. 2-21 Designating Juneteenth As an Official City Holiday
    EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 2-21 DESIGNATING JUNETEENTH AS AN OFFICIAL CITY HOLIDAY AND RENAMING THE HOLIDAY FORMERLY KNOWN AS COLUMBUS DAY TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ DAY WHEREAS, the City of Philadelphia holds an integral place in our nation’s founding as the birthplace of democracy, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, where the following words were written: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”; WHEREAS, despite these words, the United States continued to be stained by the institution of slavery and racism; WHEREAS, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery in the Confederacy, did not mean true freedom for all enslaved Africans; WHEREAS, on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger issued an order informing the people of Texas “that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free”; WHEREAS, the General’s order established the basis for the holiday now known as Juneteenth, which is now the most popular annual celebration of emancipation of slavery in the United States; WHEREAS, on June 19, 2019, Governor Tom Wolf designated June 19th as Juneteenth National Freedom Day in Pennsylvania; WHEREAS, the City of Philadelphia is a diverse and welcoming city where, according to the 2018 American Community Survey, 40% of residents are Black; WHEREAS, Juneteenth has a unique cultural and historical significance here in Philadelphia and across the country. WHEREAS, Juneteenth represents the resiliency of the human spirit, the triumph of emancipation and marks a day of reflection; WHEREAS, the need to acknowledge institutional and structural racism is needed now more than ever; WHEREAS, the City of Philadelphia is committed to work for true equity for all Philadelphia residents, and toward healing our communities; WHEREAS, the story of Christopher Columbus is deeply complicated.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter One: Postwar Resentment and the Invention of Middle America 10
    MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Jeffrey Christopher Bickerstaff Doctor of Philosophy ________________________________________ Timothy Melley, Director ________________________________________ C. Barry Chabot, Reader ________________________________________ Whitney Womack Smith, Reader ________________________________________ Marguerite S. Shaffer, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT TALES FROM THE SILENT MAJORITY: CONSERVATIVE POPULISM AND THE INVENTION OF MIDDLE AMERICA by Jeffrey Christopher Bickerstaff In this dissertation I show how the conservative movement lured the white working class out of the Democratic New Deal Coalition and into the Republican Majority. I argue that this political transformation was accomplished in part by what I call the "invention" of Middle America. Using such cultural representations as mainstream print media, literature, and film, conservatives successfully exploited what came to be known as the Social Issue and constructed "Liberalism" as effeminate, impractical, and elitist. Chapter One charts the rise of conservative populism and Middle America against the backdrop of 1960s social upheaval. I stress the importance of backlash and resentment to Richard Nixon's ascendancy to the Presidency, describe strategies employed by the conservative movement to win majority status for the GOP, and explore the conflict between this goal and the will to ideological purity. In Chapter Two I read Rabbit Redux as John Updike's attempt to model the racial education of a conservative Middle American, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, in "teach-in" scenes that reflect the conflict between the social conservative and Eastern Liberal within the author's psyche. I conclude that this conflict undermines the project and, despite laudable intentions, Updike perpetuates caricatures of the Left and hastens Middle America's rejection of Liberalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Socialism and Republicanism in Imperial Germany
    chapter 8 Socialism and Republicanism in Imperial Germany In November 1918, German Social Democrats were suddenly confronted with the need to establish a new republican state order in Germany following the collapse of the Empire. In light of the difficulties Social Democrats experi- enced in founding a stable and viable republic in 1918–19, the question of their prior understanding of republicanism – including the importance attached to the issue within the party – merits closer attention. Theoretically, the Social Democratic Party in Imperial Germany was opposed in principle to the mon- archical state. This opposition was manifested in a number of ways, such as refusing to take part in demonstrations of loyalty to the crown, in the Reichstag, for example, a policy that precluded Social Democrats from taking up a Vice- President’s (i.e. Deputy Speaker’s) position in the parliament when the party’s numbers would have justified it.The demand that the German empire be trans- formed into a democratic republic, however, was generally muted in the party’s public agitation. Robert Michels, during the time in which he identified with the left of the party, criticised it for placing too little emphasis on agitation for a republic: this he saw as ‘a mistake, that may be half attributed to a certain degree of complacency in the party, but […] equally to our monarchical institu- tions [themselves] with their rubbery law paragraphs on lèse-majesté’.1 Perhaps it was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the latter that Michels published his own most trenchant critiques of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the rel- ative safety of Italy, in Italian.2 It is clear that the Social Democratic Party was, to some extent, constrained by the prevailing laws from making open attacks on the monarchy.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 the Political Philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli Filippo Del Lucchese Table of Contents Preface Part I
    The Political Philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli Filippo Del Lucchese Table of Contents Preface Part I: The Red Dawn of Modernity 1: The Storm Part II: A Political Philosophy 2: The philosopher 3: The Discourses on Livy 4: The Prince 5: History as Politics 6: War as an art Part III: Legacy, Reception, and Influence 7: Authority, conflict, and the origin of the State (sixteenth-eighteenth centuries) 1 8: Nationalism and class conflict (nineteenth-twentieth centuries) Chronology Notes References Index 2 Preface Novel 84 of the Novellino, the most important collection of short stories before Boccaccio’s Decameron, narrates the encounter between the condottiere Ezzelino III da Romano and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II: It is recorded how one day being with the Emperor on horseback with all their followers, the two of them made a challenge which had the finer sword. The Emperor drew his sword from its sheath, and it was magnificently ornamented with gold and precious stones. Then said Messer Azzolino: it is very fine, but mine is finer by far. And he drew it forth. Then six hundred knights who were with him all drew forth theirs. When the Emperor saw the swords, he said that Azzolino’s was the finer.1 In the harsh conflict opposing the Guelphs and Ghibellines – a conflict of utter importance for the late medieval and early modern history of Italy and Europe – the feudal lord Ezzelino sends the Emperor a clear message: honours, reputation, nobility, beauty, ultimately rest on force. Gold is not important, good soldiers are, because good soldiers will find gold, not the contrary.
    [Show full text]