Niccolò Machiavelli
Hailed as the father of modern politics, Niccolò Machiavelli has long been synonymous with everything bad about the political sphere. His name, turned adjective as ‘Machiavellian’, conjures up images of a cunning, sly and manipulative figure, hell-bent on achieving their own goals regardless of the means of getting there. But was the man behind the legend really as cruel as his legacy makes out?
Interestingly, Machiavelli’s reputation varies from country to country. Tarred as a schemer, he has gone down in English-speaking history as the first of the slimy, slippery politicians–yet in his home nation of Italy, any notion of this historical bias is shed and the man is seen for what he really was: an innovator whose views were far ahead of his time–by 500 years, in fact. To this day, Machiavelli’s philosophical insights into the world of
