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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. This article offers such a retrospective view and argues that the conference dealt on the whole with two historical narratives, different to the point where they might almost invite The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition metaphor of the elephant and the whale; but that these organisms to continue the metaphor shared a common evolutionary history with some The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition outcomes. It is of far-reaching importance in the history of the European vocabulary that the majority of these independent cities are ruled by merchant patriciates, and that these denote their sovereignty, liberty, and social power by using a set of synonyms of the French bourgeoisie. Of these leagues of post- or ex-imperial cities and their regimes a unique place belongs to that which became the quasi-federated republic of the Protestant Netherlands. Not a city-state but a confederacy of cities aware of their municipal and imperial origins, it had perhaps less need of the image of the Roman republic than we shall see was the case with Florence. None of these seems to have entered into dialogue and dialectic with the metropolis as did the English and Iberian colonies in America; the The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition thought of the Dutch Republic centered on its European self. At this point there arose the problem of the elephant and the whale. It seems possible to establish such a scenario, part historiographical and part historical. Leonardo Bruni, writing the first book of his History of the Florentine People in the early years of the fifteenth century, articulates a major theme of European historiography. This energy took a conquering form, and Roman liberty was the cause of its empire over others. He goes on to relate the story, already told by Roman historians, of how liberty acquired an empire greater than the institutions of liberty could control, how liberty was corrupted by empire, and how the republic fell under the rule of emperors. In destroying libertashowever, the Caesars destroyed the virtus needed to defend the empire it had acquired, and there followed Roman weakness in the face of the conquering barbarians. Three centuries after Bruni, Edward Gibbon, seeking a subject after his visit to Rome, took up the story from this point, relying on Lodovico Antonio Muratori for the narrative of how the Lombard and Tuscan cities had allied with papacy against empire in pursuit of independence from both. This was a framework in which to present and perhaps explain the processes by which Italian cities were passing under the rule of signori and principi —among whom the Medici at Florence were a special case—though none of them duplicated the expansion of empire that had been fatal to the libertas of Rome. They were histories of Rome in which Italians saw themselves, carried down to the point where Machiavellian understandings of repubbliche and principati gave way to Tacitist understanding of the politics of princely courts, in which the individual struggled to maintain his own integrity and counsel the prince against degenerating into a tyrant. It is the Machiavellian-Tacitist sequence that we look for, but apparently do not find, in the history of Dutch political thought. To say that it never The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition disastrous, however, is not to explain why it should not have been debated; and it is possible to ask whether, in the great Netherlands culture of classical and juristic scholarship, there was ever formulated a Dutch reading of Roman history or a Roman reading The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition Dutch. Let us reiterate the narrative of The Machiavellian Moment. In the English kingdom under the Stuart dynasty, the history of land tenure became important in, though it did not cause, the ideological disputes before and during the drift to civil war. He is an extraordinary figure in both Dutch and British history, with whom the historians of both nations had difficulty in coming to terms. It would be valuable to have—or do we possess? The debate had become one about a profound historical change in the meanings of European politics. In the critique of credit, the critique of commerce was never more than a middle term; it was admired as reinforcing reality on the one hand, denounced as subverting it on the other. So do its successor volumes. Hence the debate between ancient and modern liberty, to be found in Britain a century before it was taken up by Benjamin Constant. It was a debate by no means uniquely British, but in the form it took in Britain a class of free landholders, whose history could be traced back through Gothic to classic and Greco-Roman times, played a crucial role. There was a tension in the meanings of virtue itself, very evident in the debates over the founding of the American federal republic. A recent volume of essays by Wyger Velema [22] has continued the debate over the political and historical thought of the last century of the republic, vigorously conducted by Margaret Jacob, Wijnand Mijnhardt, [23] Nicolas van Sas, and others writing mainly in Dutch. This was to fall into line with Montesquieu, and after him with Gibbon and Smith whatever the role of the two latter in Netherlandish historiography and philosophy. From this had developed a complex narrative of European history, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition how the liberty of real property had been the precondition of the growth of the trading cities; and an equally complex philosophical history of political economy, in which agriculture and commerce developed together, as sedentary cultivators entered into exchange relationships in an expanding geopolitical space. All this was the common possession of Enlightened historians and philosophers, and was certainly as accessible in the Netherlands as elsewhere. We seem, however, to lack a study of how whether? What role, the reader wishes to enquire, was ascribed to the ancient liberty of the Batavians? Was their occupation of land, or that of their Frankish and Burgundian successors, related to the growth of the trading cities, or did these take shape in a water world shaped only by rivers giving access to the sea? And—the anglophone reader preoccupied with the relation of land to liberty is tempted to ask—what of the eastern Netherlands, where a landed minor nobility historically Orangist became in one or two cases Patriot enemies of regents and princes alike? In eighteenth-century thought, this history could not be stated without presenting ancient liberty as lingeringly barbaric and modern liberty as potentially corrupt. The question asked in this article is whether the eighteenth-century Dutch possessed a narrative of their own history or that of The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition that could be applied to these problems. If so, what was it? If not, what were the consequences? This question is asked in the context of an ultimate paradox. In the Netherlands, the greatest of the burgher republics declined and died—largely, it would seem, of a loss of belief in itself—and after a Bonapartist interlude was replaced by a parliamentary monarchy. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. These changes should be historically examined, but are presupposed in the present article. See James Hankins, ed. See Wyger R. John M. Najemy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Pocock, ed. Schwoerer, ed. If this is all, the rhetoric belongs in the history of anti-Judaism, not as in England to a history of change in property and power. Hilda L. Smith Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,— Stanford strives to post only content for which we have licensed permission or that is otherwise permitted by copyright law. If you have a concern that your copyrighted material is posted here without your permission, please contact us and we will work with you to resolve your concern. If any Arcade blogger elects a different license, the blogger's license takes precedence. Skip to: Skip to content. Log In Sign Up. Volume 2, Issue 1. Download PDF. Limits of the Atlantic Republican Tradition

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — The Machiavellian Moment by J. The Machiavellian Moment is a classic study of the consequences for modern historical and social consciousness of the ideal of the classical republic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy. Pocock suggests that Machiavelli's prime emphasis The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition on the moment in which the republic confronts the problem of its own instability in time, and which The Machiavellian Moment is a classic study of the consequences for modern historical and social consciousness of the ideal of the classical republic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy. 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. After examining this problem in the thought of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Giannotti, Pocock turns to the revival of republican thought 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. He relates the origins of modern historicism to the clash between civic, Christian, and commercial values in the thought of the eighteenth century. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published February 16th by Princeton University Press first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Machiavellian Momentplease sign up. Be the first to ask a question about The Machiavellian Moment. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Aug 06, Jonathan rated it liked it Shelves: academic-reading-and-research18th-century- britain17th-century-england. Were I placed in charge of the administration of purgatory, I would institute a rule for the purification of scholars: they must revise their entire published oeuvre and resubmit it as a brochure. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition all, that's pretty much what they make us students do. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition is my first, informal attempt to do that for J. The Machiavellian Moment argues that a distinct thread of political thought ran from medieval Florence through Stuart and Hanoverian England to nineteenth-century America. This th Were I placed in charge of the administration of purgatory, I would institute a rule for the purification of scholars: they must revise their entire published oeuvre and resubmit it as a brochure. This thread, which we may call "civic republicanism," emerged in Italy as the Renaissance humanists a revived knowledge of classical civilization and b realized that societies are located in time and thus are subject to change. As a result of this awakening, the humanists theorized that individuals must take up active civic life -- must exercise civic virtue -- in order to take charge of the course of history and prevent the decay of their state. At all times, however, it was inextricably linked with the good of the state. Other Italians such as Francesco Guicciardini emphasized aspects of classical politics that called for "prudence" and "mixed government. In seventeenth-century England, republicanism got off to an odd start. It emerged in politics when the traditional English combination of activist conservatism based on customary liberties and political consultation and apocalyptic religious nationalism stemming from the Reformation finally broke down under the weight of the monarch's obstinacy. The people had to take over as citizens in order to achieve their transcendent ideals in real time. However, the English remained relatively conservative, and their actual republic did not last long. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition did, however, produce a new republican theorist, James Harrington, who Anglicized the thought of Machiavelli. Harrington connected, more tightly than anyone before had, the bearing of arms and the ownership of land. The citizen, in Machiavellian thought, had to bear arms to defend the state; for Harrington, then, property ownership was a fundamental characteristic of the citizen. But patterns of land ownership and arms-bearing were changing, as the next generation of English republicans -- the "neo-Harringtonians" -- pointed out. A nation of "armed proprietors" no longer existed in either the Commons or the Lords. Britain was becoming a global power with a professional military force, which it maintained through abstract credit and taxes on commerce rather than through real property. The threat of corruptioni. Now Machiavelli's fortune had a much clearer political face -- it was the face of the professional soldier, the stock-jobber, the banker, the MP dependent on someone else's money -- the corrupt man. Debates over public corruption dominated eighteenth-century British politics. For the most part, however, the complexity of Britain's situation kept the political pot at a high simmer rather than a boil. But in the American colonies, the republicans had fewer distractions. In their new nation, republican language dominated political debates well into the next century, if not beyond. Americans were, above all, concerned with maintaining a polity in which individuals would act as virtuous citizens. In other words, the American founding was not a Lockean liberal enterprise. This is Pocock's key claim, really. Instead of trying to free themselves from coercion so that they could pursue their individual happinesses -- the traditional view, probably -- the Americans were The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition to free themselves from corruption so that they could collectively pursue the public happiness. First, the choice of Machiavelli as the paradigmatic republican thinker still mystifies me. I've read Pocock and I've read Quentin Skinner, and this still doesn't make much sense. There were far too many alternative figures, even in Renaissance Italy, both before and after Machiavelli. The only solid reason I can see for the choice is that Machiavelli was a more secular thinker than his peers. This, however, is a tendentious rationale. Mainstream medieval Christian thought was far more conducive to republicanism than Pocock lets on. And religious thought has been conducive to republican experiments far too often to justify Pocock's identification of the republican with the secular. Second, and relatedly, I object to the catholicity of Pocock's republicanism. At the end of this book, I was left with the impression that we can immediately identify as "republican" all of the following: apocalypticism or secularism; imperialism or anti-imperialism; agrarianism or modern political economy; classicism or aggressive innovation; submission to the public will or defiance of it; and aristocracy or egalitarianism. At the end of the book, the only British or American thinker since who doesn't seem to count as a "republican" is John Locke. I know enough about John Locke's actual politics to find this result suspect. View all 4 comments. Oct 16, Khitkhite Buri rated it liked it Shelves: if-there-be-good-liberalsrenaissanceantiquityhistoriography- loggerheadshistory-of-ideasparis-and-the-rest-of-francepolitical-theory. I know too much about how disputed this is now, and it's ridiculously blind about its own conservatism. Draws a tradition. Forgets property. Forgets Locke etc. But the first part of the book was goo-ood. Dec 27, Michel rated it liked it. More like "Gucciardinian moment" but old Pocock still does a good job. Nov 10, Bradley rated it it was amazing. Hexter and Caroline Robbins et al. Despite my admiration for what this Kiwi hath wrought, I will say at times the "Machiavellism" seemed a little strained, more gimmick than apt description. Yet, this results from a misapprehension of what Pocock is really about. Languages rather than The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition ideas are at work here. Language after the fashion of Joan Scott: a symbolic system of conveying meaning. The dichotomy of virtue and fortune, articulated for medieval consumption by Boethius, is inflected through successive centuries of discourse whilst retaining its fundamental character as a clash between man's desire to rule himself and the irrational stream of events that roars and threatens to destroy his fragile creation, the republic. It's not that a concept became hegemonic, but that a language persisted and was used sometimes to express notions quite different than what we might term republican. The Court and the Country spoke in roughly the same language, but drew different conclusions. The problem is perhaps that Pocock had no idea of "discourse" available to him in and I am judging him in a context alien to his work. His method was informed by Kuhn's paradigms which explains why so many seemingly unrelated concepts e. These were models available in the republican paradigm as a collection, or in a favorite term of his, a "constellation" of concepts. Apr 18, Karl Georg rated it really liked it. Covers a certain thread of political thought Man as zoon politicon; people doing politics in the polis, virtuously interacting, but always endangered by corruption; the whole thing tracing back to Aristotle and beyond from it's re- emergence in the Renaissance, to how it re-surfaced in England in the 17th century, and finally contributed to shaping the constitution of the U.