Machiavelli for Mayors (aka The Municipal Machiavelli) is my modern rewriting of Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous (or infamous) work, The Prince. I researched and wrote it in 2012, compiling a large library of books on Machiavelli, by Machiavelli, about Renaissance politics, Italian history, political science and many, many translations and interpretations of The Prince in the process. You can find my book online here:
Machiavelli for Mayors: The Prince Rewritten
It is approximately 80,000 words, with roughly 500 quotations taken from both The Prince and other works by Machiavelli, as well as from other sources such as Sun Tzu, Han Fei Tzu, Napoleon, Cicero, Robert Greene, Francis Bacon and others. The main quotations (more than 450 of them) also appear randomly in the quote widget in the site’s sidebar.
I wrote my book using the chapters that parallel Machiavelli’s own in The Prince, although the chapter titles are somewhat different to suit the modern perspective and updated content. There are ten additional sections (including the bibliography) that attempt to define and explain Machiavelli both in historical and modern context. I am still looking for some historical material through online booksellers, and may add content to the bibliography or additional quotations to the core material, in future.
The online format is in WordPress. However, I am currently working on an updated ebook, iTunes and PDF version titled “Machiavelli for Mayors” for e-readers and tablets, to make it more widely accessible. The new version has also added about 10,000 words. I hope to have it available by fall 2017.
Machiavelli has long fascinated me. He was the first modern political philosopher, but also a deeply moral philosopher. I first read The Prince in the early 1970s, and immediately recognized its applicability to corporate management and leadership. It was my experience in municipal politics that made me realize how applicable it was to municipal governance. In fact, Machiavelli’s original audience was the municipal leaders of his day.
In the 500 years since he wrote The Prince, Machiavelli’s work has been dissected, analysed, rewritten, deconstructed, commented on, and reframed for business, finance, international politics, leadership, sales and more – but I have yet to encounter another work that puts it back in the arena of municipal politics whence it came. Municipal politicians are overlooked when scholars dissect Machiavelli, and that’s to me a big oversight given who Machiavelli originally wrote for.
It also works well as a guide for municipal and local associations, boards, committees and even staff.
2013 was the 500th anniversary since the writing of The Prince (although it wasn’t published until 1532, after Machiavelli’s death). I felt it only fitting to update Machiavelli and bring back the audience he first wrote for. I hope I can in some small way contribute to restoring him to his original audience. I continue to research and update the site with new insights and information gained from my reading. Some of this will appear as new posts on the site. Other content will appear as new pages in the main text.
Your comments and suggestions on my latest work are welcome. And yes, it is (somewhat) satirical.
