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The Municipal Machiavelli

Machiavelli's The Prince Rewritten for Municipal Politicians

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  • Chapters 1-7
  • Chapters 8-14
  • Chapters 15-21
  • Chapters 22-26
  • Addenda
  • Miscellanea
The Municipal Machiavelli

Addenda

The addenda and appendices:

  • Opening Quotes & Dedication
  • Introduction
  • A Brief Biography of Machiavelli
  • About The Prince
  • Machiavelli’s Rules
  • Machiavellian Misquotes
  • Why Machiavelli Matters Today
  • Addendum: The Art of War
  • The Ten Faults
  • Translating Machiavelli
  • Bibliography and Sources

The Prince by Chapter:

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI

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Chapters

  • Opening Quotes & Dedication
  • Introduction
  • 1: Home Town Kingdoms
  • 2: Why Incumbents Rule Municipalities
  • 3: Newcomers Versus Incumbents
  • 4: Flexing Your Muscles
  • 5: Troublesome Incumbents & Staff
  • 6: New Ideas Make Enemies
  • 7: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?
  • 8: Does the End Justify the Means?
  • 9: Problems Newcomers Face
  • 10: Defending Your Position
  • 11: Agencies You Can’t Control
  • 12: Crafty Consultants
  • 13: Dangerous Lobbyists
  • 14: Learn the Rules of War
  • 15: Looking Good, Acting Bad
  • 16: Parsimony Beats Generosity
  • 17: Better to be Feared Than Loved
  • 18: The Subtle Art of Lying
  • 19: All You Need Isn’t Love
  • 20: Factions & Fortresses
  • 21: Saving Your Reputation
  • 22: Loyal Staff & Wise Advisors
  • 23: Avoid Flatterers & Sycophants
  • 24: How Not to be Re-Elected
  • 25: Skill Beats Luck Every Time
  • 26: The Forest and the Trees

Addenda

  • A Brief Biography
  • About The Prince
  • Demonizing Machiavelli
  • Why Machiavelli Matters
  • Machiavelli’s Rules
  • Machiavellian Misquotes
  • Translating Machiavelli
  • Machiavelli’s The Art of War
  • The Ten Faults
  • Quotes from Machiavelli
  • Other Quotes
  • Letter to Francesco Vettori
  • Bibliography & Sources

Miscellanea

  • Machiavelli’s The Art of War
  • The Ten Faults
  • Other Quotes
  • Quotes from Machiavelli
  • Letter to Francesco Vettori

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Web Links

  • My Blog
  • E-Machiavelli
  • Annotated Prince
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  • The Great Courses
  • Wikipedia
  • Machiavelli Resources
  • Don MacDonald’s Graphic Novel
  • My biography
  • Archived post on leadership

The Municipal Machiavelli

The Municipal Machiavelli is a (mostly) satirical look at Machiavelli's master work, The Prince with commentary and observations, applying his ideas to municipal politics. It is not meant as a scholarly or definitive approach to Machiavelli's philosophy, politics or art. As Juvenal wrote, "Difficile est saturam non scribere:" It is difficult not to write satire.

Similarly, Montaigne wrote, "My natural style is comedy, but one whose form is personal to me, a private style unsuited to public business..." One can only hope the reader gets the humour intended, but appreciation cannot be forced.

However, the author sincerely hopes that in reading his words, you gain some insight into Machiavellian issues, as well as the engaging and sometimes contentious practice of municipal governance and campaigning. And that you get a bit of a chuckle along the way.

The complete work including all pages and posts, are copyright © 2013 by the author, all rights reserved. It will be released as an e-book in 2014.

The blog posts contain recent commentary, insight, book reviews and any material I feel is related to Machiavelli, politics, issues, current or historical events .

Verbiage

  • 37,875 Words (post)
  • 72,772 Words (page)
  • 221 Words (custom)
  • 110,868 Total words

Recent Posts

  • Machiavelli’s Prince as satire June 8, 2017
  • Machiavelli for Mayors is almost complete April 29, 2017
  • The skirt-lifting incident March 19, 2017
  • Tim Parks translates The Prince April 16, 2016
  • A Machiavellian Mis-quote February 26, 2016

Excerpts:

The Ten Faults

Long before Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, there was another man writing in a similar vein in China. His words have important political lessons that are useful, even today, for our municipal councils.

Han Fei Tzu was a prince in the Han Kingdom in the third century BCE. He was a member of and spokesperson for [...]

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Quotes from Machiavelli

These are the quotations taken from Machiavelli’s works, used in this book. I used the public domain versions of his books for most of my sources, however some of the wording and punctuation may be updated or altered for clarity and modernity. See the Bibliography for details on sources.

In the book, quotations from The Prince [...]

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Server upgrade coming

Sometime in the next two weeks, I will be amalgamating servers for the several sites I manage and conflating them onto one, new and (I hope) faster and more efficient server. There may be some downtime while the files and databases migrate, like virtual birds, to their new home.

I hope that the digital gods of [...]

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Letter to Francesco Vettori

Magnificent ambassador:

“Never were divine favors late.” I say this because I appear to have lost, no, mislaid your favor, since you have gone a long time without writing me, and I was doubtful whence the cause could arise. And of all those that came to my mind I took little account except for one, when [...]

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New Machiavelli book on the shelves

A new book on The Prince arrived at my mailbox, last week: Miguel Vatter’s Reader’s Guide to Machiavelli’s The Prince. Vatter is professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He has written about Machiavelli before.

I’ve been reading it since its arrival and am, so far, impressed by [...]

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Recent Comments

  • Respect, Not Admiration – Unodiscuss Blog on Chapter 17: Better to be Feared Than Loved
  • I Think My Brother Won't Speak to Me Because I Voted for Trump - Page 13 - Talk About Marriage on Machiavelli’s Rules
  • References – Truth in Politics on Chapter 18: The Subtle Art of Lying
  • Wärme und Kompetenz – Gut geführt? on Chapter 17: Better to be Feared Than Loved
  • America Has Fallen. But She Can Recover and Run Again. – The Conservative Historical Review on Chapter 8: Does the End Justify the Means?
  • Home
  • Chapters 1-7
  • Chapters 8-14
  • Chapters 15-21
  • Chapters 22-26
  • Addenda
  • Miscellanea
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