Machiavelli and the orders of violence / Yves Winter, McGill University.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Winter, Yves, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527--Criticism and interpretation.

Machiavelli, Niccolò.

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527.

Political violence.

Violence.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 230 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Summary:

"Niccolò Machiavelli is the most prominent and notorious theorist of violence in the history of European political thought - prominent, because he is the first to candidly discuss the role of violence in politics; and notorious, because he treats violence as virtue rather than as vice. In this original interpretation, Yves Winter reconstructs Machiavelli's theory of violence and shows how it challenges moral and metaphysical ideas. Winter attributes two central theses to Machiavelli: first, violence is not a generic technology of government but a strategy that tends to correlate with inequality and class conflict; and second, violence is best understood not in terms of conventional notions of law enforcement, coercion, or the proverbial 'last resort', but as performance. Most political violence is effective not because it physically compels another agent who is thus coerced; rather, it produces political effects by appealing to an audience. As such, this book shows how in Machiavelli's world, violence is designed to be perceived, experienced, remembered, and narrated"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Spectacle

Force

Cruelty

Beginnings

Institutions

Tumults.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-220) and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781108426701

1108426700

9781108445443

1108445446

OCLC:

1028622212