Machiavelli, Yesterday and Today

Catalog description

This course, offered in Romance Studies in the Italian Section, is meant for students who have no prior knowledge of Machiavelli, political science, or for that matter the Renaissance. It is both an introduction to one of the greatest political thinkers of the modern period, the father for many of what has come to be called political science, and a chance to reflect upon why it is that no thinker has been more cited or called upon in the last decade. Whether it be on questions of populism or the effects of climate change how people are governed, Machiavelli seems to speak to us directly in ways that few others do.