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Machiavelli: His Life and Times

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Machiavelli: His Life and Times

By: Alexander Lee
Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
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Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolo` Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? Might he not have been an infinitely more sympathetic figure, prone to political missteps, professional failures, and personal dramas?

In Machiavelli: His Life and Times, Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his father's penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher's hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile. In doing so, Lee uncovers hitherto unobserved connections between Machiavelli's life and thought. He also reveals the world through which Machiavelli moved: from the great halls of Renaissance Florence to the court of the Borgia pope Alexander VI, from the dungeons of the Stinche prison to the Rucellai garden, where he would begin to write some of his last great works.

As much a portrait of an age as of a uniquely engaging man, Lee's gripping and definitive biography takes the listener into Machiavelli's world - and his work - more completely than ever before.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2021 Naxos Audiobooks (P)2021 Naxos Audiobooks Historical Politicians Politics & Activism
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Incredibly interesting.
Written and read in a way which captivates your attention and environs you in its story.
Definitely recommend it!

Fascinating

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It will not be hard to find something else to do with your time. You are welcome to

Boring as hell

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This book reads at times like the minutes of a committee meeting, at other times like State Department archives, at still others like the rulebook to Risk. Mixed in with this tedium is salacious gossip that adds nothing to our understanding of the subject. Machiavelli's thought and writing is almost ignored at the expense of his political career, which is a bit like writing a biography of Paul McCartney that focuses almost entirely on his time with Wings, or maybe a bio of Michael Jordan that dwells on his baseball career. Skip this and go with "Machiavelli" by Miles Unger.

Subtitle should be "His times and times."

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