The Machiavellian Moment
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Machiavellian Moment
| Full title | The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition |
|---|---|
| Author | J. G. A. Pocock |
| Published | 1975 |
| Pages | 602 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Pocock traces republican political thought from fifteenth-century Florence through seventeenth-century England to the American founding, arguing that a civic-humanist vocabulary of virtue, corruption and the armed citizen — not Lockean rights-liberalism alone — supplied the language in which the English and American revolutions were argued. |
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the Political Philosophy and the History of Ideas part under The American Experiment, March 2026, among Tocqueville, the Federalist Papers and Storing — the block on how a durable republic was actually assembled. Full transcription: The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
The “Machiavellian moment” of the title is the moment a republic confronts its own mortality in time — the recognition that a self-governing community is fragile and contingent, and must continually renew the civic virtue that sustains it or decay into corruption.
Connections
- The Prince — Machiavelli’s text, on McCord’s list in the Renaissance section, and the origin of the tradition Pocock traces.
- Founding Fathers — the Atlantic end of the republican tradition the book follows.
- Liberalism — the rival account of the founding that Pocock’s civic-humanist reading is set against.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.