The Machiavellians
| Author | James Burnham |
|---|---|
| Published | 1943 |
| Format | Book |
TL;DR — James Burnham’s 1943 study of Machiavelli, Mosca, Sorel, Michels and Pareto, arguing that politics is always the rule of an elite and that freedom depends on open conflict among elites.
Published by the John Day Company in New York in 1943, two years after Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution. The book opens with a reading of Dante’s De Monarchia as an example of political writing whose stated meaning hides its real one, then sets out a “Machiavellian” tradition of realist political science: Machiavelli himself, Gaetano Mosca on the ruling class, Georges Sorel on myth and violence, Robert Michels on the “iron law of oligarchy,” and Vilfredo Pareto on elites and the circulation of elites.
Burnham’s argument is that all societies are ruled by a minority, that political formulas and ideals mostly serve to justify that rule, and that liberty survives only where rival elites check one another and opposition is tolerated. The closing parts apply the framework to politics and freedom in the war years.
What it is: a classic of twentieth-century political theory, still in print. This file is a scan of the first edition, with no text layer.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
276 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.