The Literature Network - Book review: Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood: Too much sympathy for the devil

Book review: Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood: Too much sympathy for the devil

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From: Scotland on Sunday
Date: 20041205
Author:Andrew Crumey

Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood

Michael White

Little, Brown, GBP 16.99

HAVING your name become part of the language sounds like the greatest possible honour: but eponymous fame can be negative, as Quisling or Guillotine would attest. The word 'Machiavellian' suggests fiendish cunning and shameless duplicity, and was being defined as such in English dictionaries as far back as 1569, just 42 years after Niccolo Machiavelli died. But according to biographer Michael White, we have got 'Machia' (as his friends called him) all wrong. He was a fun-loving joker with the soul of a poet and a ...

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