Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy

Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders is the only full-length interpretive study on Machiavelli's controversial and ambiguous work, Discourses on Livy. These discourses, considered by some to be Machiavelli's most important work, are thoroughly explained in a chapter-by-chapter commentary by Harvey C. Mansfield, one of the world's foremost interpreters of this remarkable philosopher.

Mansfield's aim is to discern Machiavelli's intention in writing the book: he argues that Machiavelli wanted to introduce new modes and orders in political philosophy in order to make himself the founder of modern politics. Mansfield maintains that Machiavelli deliberately concealed part of his intentions so that only the most perceptive reader could see beneath the surface of the text and understand the whole of his book. Previously out of print, Mansfield's penetrating study brings to light the hidden thoughts lurking in the details of the Discourses on Livy to inform and challenge its readers at every step along the way.

Author: Harvey C. Mansfield
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 04/15/2001
Pages: 460
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.36lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.04w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9780226503707
ISBN10: 0226503704
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Political
- History | Ancient | Rome
- Philosophy | History & Surveys | Medieval

About the Author
Harvey C. Mansfield is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is the author of Machiavelli's Virtue and has translated The Prince, Discourses on Livy (with Nathan Tarcov), and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (with Delba Winthrop), all published by the University of Chicago Press.