Description
Book SynopsisThis new edition of the acclaimed translation of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince - revised for the first time after thirty years - includes an extended and rewritten introduction by Quentin Skinner, an improved timeline of key events in Machiavelli's life, and a fully updated bibliography.
Table of ContentsEditorial note; Introduction; Principal events in Machiavelli's life; Bibliographical note; Translator's note; Map: northern and central Italy, c.1500; Dedicatory letter: Niccolò Machiavelli to His Magnificence Lorenzo de' Medici; 1. How many kinds of principality there are, and by what means they are acquired; 2. Hereditary principalities; 3. Mixed principalities; 4. Why the Kingdom of Darius, which Alexander occupied, did not rebel against his successors after Alexander's death; 5. By what means cities or provinces that lived under their own laws before they were occupied ought to be administered; 6. New principalities acquired by one's own arms and ability; 7. New principalities acquired through the arms and fortune of others; 8. Those who become rulers through crime; 9. The civil principality; 10. In what ways the strengths of all principalities should be measured; 11. Ecclesiastical principalities; 12. How many kinds of soldiers there are, and mercenary troops; 13. Auxiliaries, mixed troops and one's own troops; 14. How a ruler should act concerning military matters; 15. The things for which men, and especially rulers, are praised or blamed; 16. Liberality and parsimony; 17. Cruelty and mercifulness; and whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the contrary; 18. In what way rulers should keep their promises; 19. How contempt and hatred should be avoided; 20. Whether building fortresses, and many other things that rulers frequently do, are useful or useless; 21. What a ruler should do in order to be thought outstanding; 22. On those whom rulers employ in secret matters; 23. How flatterers should be shunned; 24. Why the rulers of Italy have lost their states; 25. How much control fortune has over human affairs, and by what means she can be resisted; 26. An exhortation to seize possession of Italy and assert her liberty from the barbarians; Appendix A. Letters relevant to The Prince; Appendix B. Notes on the vocabulary of The Prince; Biographical notes; Index of subjects; Index of proper names.
