Description
Book SynopsisA comprehensive, authoritative and highly original portrait of one of history's most unjustly infamous characters.
Trade ReviewThe result is a life of Machiavelli that must surely be definitive in its faithfulness to the man and his experience of his time . . . Lee presents a novel interpretation of his subject's thinking. -- John Gray * New Statesman *
Detailed, accessible and authoritative . . . an utterly absorbing month-by-month, often day-by-day account of Machiavelli's life and career. -- John Guy * Literary Review *
A fine new biography. -- Simon Heffer * Telegraph *
A superb work of scholarship, securely grounded in the turbulent Italy of Machiavelli's day, and unflinchingly truthful . . . Lee retells the stories of plagues and brush-offs, of brothels, betrayals and massacres, in a brisk and compelling style. -- Ferdinand Mount * Prospect *
[A] weighty and impressively detailed biography -- Michael Prodger * The Times *
[T]he definitive book on Machiavelli -- Christopher Hart * Sunday Times *
A wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography that captures not only the much-maligned Machiavelli, but also the spirit of his time and place. A monumental achievement. -- Jessie Childs, author of
God's TraitorsAlexander Lee’s
Machiavelli: His Life and Times sets a wholly new standard for English-language biographies of the Florentine thinker, synthesising recent academic research and placing his subject in a vividly described context of Renaissance society and everyday life -- Tony Barber * Financial Times *
His life and times are presented in their complex, contradictory fullness, as is Machiavelli himself . . . Lee is to be especially applauded for his even-handed treatment of a controversial historical figure. -- Joanne Paul * BBC History Magazine *
From Lee's magisterial biography, rich in detail and light on speculation, the writer emerges as a flawed but markedly fascinating individual -- Nicholas Cranfield * Church Times *
[A] fine new biography ... Lee tells his story with verve. -- Lauro Martines * Times Literary Supplement *
Immensely readable . . . Machiavelli emerges from Lee’s account as one of the Italian Renaissance’s greatest figures. * Financial Times 'Books of the Summer' *
Such is its hefty size that I set out to read Alexander Lee’s
Machiavelli at a lick. However, it is so rich in granular detail – not just about the surprisingly hapless man himself, but about Florentine society and the wars that scudded across Renaissance Italy – that I was forced to take it slowly, and was rewarded handsomely. -- Michael Prodger * New Statesman 'Books of the Year' *
Lee’s exhaustive, balanced and immensely readable work, sets a wholly new standard for English-language biographies of Machiavelli. -- Tony Barber * Financial Times 'Books of the Year' *
