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Catherine Zuckert on Machiavelli's New Understanding of Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 April 2018
Abstract
Catherine Zuckert's Machiavelli's Politics offers an unprecedented interpretation of all of Machiavelli's major works. Her interpretation places Machiavelli in his historical context as he understood it and shows Machiavelli seeking a populist alternative in politics. Because her approach and her conclusion have been championed by scholars explicitly opposed to Strauss's interpretation of Machiavelli, she intervenes in the scholarly debates on Machiavelli by drawing seemingly opposed approaches closer together. Strauss acknowledges the importance of Machiavelli's historical situation and understands him as a type of democrat. Nevertheless, in highlighting the functioning of Machiavelli's republic, Zuckert directly challenges Strauss, who, she argues, focuses too narrowly on Machiavelli's war on Christianity to explicate fully Machiavelli's politics. Religion and politics, though, are inextricably linked in Machiavelli's thought, and his treatment of Christianity's ascendency offers insight into his new republicanism. Consideration of Montesquieu's commentary on Machiavelli underscores some of the excesses of the Florentine's political solutions.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- The Review of Politics , Volume 80 , Special Issue 2: Honoring Catherine H. Zuckert , Spring 2018 , pp. 271 - 282
- Copyright
- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2018
References
1 If I remember correctly, she was the teacher of record, but Michael Zuckert, who was then on sabbatical, couldn't stay away from the classroom, so the effective truth of the seminar was that it was co-taught.
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25 Ibid., 36 (1.11). Emphasis added.
26 Ibid., 72 (1.33).
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