The Rise and Fall of Rational Control

Why it’s on the list: Mansfield’s Harvard survey course written down — modern political philosophy from Machiavelli to Nietzsche as a single arc.

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2026.

Where I saw it: @contrapolisci on X, February 10, 2026, quoting a review: “from its Machiavellian origins to its Nietzschean unraveling.”

Connections

• Liberalism — the project whose rise and unravelling the book narrates.
• Ideological Family Tree — a whole lineage in one volume.