Machiavelli and the Modern State by Alissa M. Ardito - 9781107693708

Machiavelli and the Modern StateThe Prince, the Discourses on Livy, and the Extended Territorial Republic\nAuthor(s): Alissa M. Ardito\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9781107693708, 978-1107693708\nSynopsis\nThis book offers a significant reinterpretation of the history of republican political thought and of Niccol Machiavelli's place within it. It locates Machiavelli's political thought within enduring debates about the proper size of republics. From the sixteenth century onward, as states grew larger, it was believed only monarchies could govern large territories effectively. Republicanism was a form of government relegated to urban city-states, anachronisms in the new age of the territorial state. For centuries, history and theory were in agreement: constructing an extended republic was as futile as trying to square the circle; but then James Madison devised a compound representative republic .