Table Of ContentMachiavelli Then and Now
Machiavelli’s ideas are as important in our time as in his own. His insights
and prescriptions help us make sense of today’s political upheavals and natural
calamities, and reduce them to a working order. The essays in this volume explore
Machiavelli’s central concerns: statecraft and order, liberty and citizenship,
diplomacy and leadership, modes of strategization, the quest for empire—all set
against the basic contention between autarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. They
also address the ethical and behaviourial factors behind political practice, such
as force, suasion, ambition, corruption, and vigilance in public discourse. Several
essays consider the role of language, text, and the imagination in Machiavelli.
Two pieces bring the Machiavellian discourse closer to our own times, in relation
to Gandhi, Gramsci, and Althusser.
Sukanta Chaudhuri is Emeritus Professor of English, Jadavpur University.
Prasanta Chakravarty teaches English at the University of Delhi.
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Published online by Cambridge University Press
Machiavelli Then
and Now
History, Politics, Literature
Edited by
Sukanta Chaudhuri
Prasanta Chakravarty
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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First published 2022
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To the memory of Swapan Chakravorty,
scholar and humanist
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations and Editions Used xi
1. Introduction—Prasanta Chakravarty 1
Power, Citizenship, Strategies
2. Machiavelli on Relationships: Knowledge of the
Occasion—Thomas Berns 21
3. The Anatomy of an Error: Machiavelli’s Supposed Commitment
to a ‘Citizen’ Militia—Paul A. Rahe 31
4. Machiavelli and Tyranny—Doyeeta Majumder 54
5. Machiavelli’s Turn to Xenophon—Christopher Nadon and
Christopher Lynch 73
6. Machiavelli and the Solitary Discipline of
Hunting—Prasanta Chakravarty 96
7. ‘To Give Reputation to One’: Machiavelli the Populist and
Other Variations on II Principe, Chapter 9—Guido Cappelli 121
History
8. Riscontro: Machiavelli’s Art of History—Francesco Marchesi 145
9. ‘Letters as Oracles’: Machiavelli’s Foresight in His Letters
—Marcello Simonetta 162
10. Machiavelli’s Lucretia and the Origins of the Roman Republic:
Rape, Gender, and Founding Violence—Yves Winter 174
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viii Contents
Words and Dispositions
11. Thinking with Animals: Machiavelli’s L’asino and the
Metamorphoses of Power—Supriya Chaudhuri 193
12. Machiavellian Rhetoric Revisited—Victoria Kahn 219
13. Machiavelli Reading—Swapan Chakravorty 235
14. A Language for Politics and a Language of Politics: Words
as a Tool of Understanding and of Action in Machiavelli
—Jean-Louis Fournel 262
Afterlife
15. Machiavelli and Gandhi—Sukanta Chaudhuri 281
16. The Prince between Gramsci and Althusser—Vittorio Morfino 296
The Contributors 316
Index 321
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Preface
Sometime in 2016, the idea of a seminar on Niccolò Machiavelli, at once
contextualizing his writings and studying their impact on our own times, took
root in Prasanta Chakravarty’s mind. It was a diffident intuition. Was the thought
historically too adventurous? Was it tenable to universalize Machiavelli and read
him from an Indian location after so many centuries? On what grounds could
one advance such a politically charged proposal to a literature department? His
nebulous thoughts began to take shape when Christel Devadawson, then Head
of the Department of English, University of Delhi, said she would back the idea.
By the latter half of 2017, Prasanta was mailing a host of Machiavelli scholars
across the world, asking whether they would be willing to travel to New Delhi
in October 2018 for a conference on Machiavelli and his ideas. The Department
could offer hospitality and three days of strenuous jousting with the man.
A number of scholars immediately agreed. Those who could not, offered enormous
support and goodwill. Thus, in the autumn of 2018, the Department came to host
a conference entitled ‘Machiavelli in His Time, and Ours’. Most of the chapters
in this book originated in that conference. The rest are by scholars who could not
make it there but have been an integral part of the larger collective. Our thanks to
all these distinguished contributors.
Rajeev Bhargava and Sukanta Chaudhuri were involved from the start as
advisers to the project. Professor Bhargava has continued his exchanges with
Prasanta on the political and philosophical ramifications of classical and Early
Modern thought in our times. Sukanta Chaudhuri’s association culminated in his
co-editorship of this volume.
Sincere thanks are due to Rimli Bhattacharya, Rahul Govind, and Madhvi
Zutshi, who participated untiringly, over a year and more, in academic and
logistical planning of the conference. It would have been impossible to conceive the
seminar and the book without their grace and guidance. Tanya Roy, Department
of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Delhi, and her co-participants
brought the comic power of Mandragola to life before the conference audience by
their spirited play-reading.
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030120.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press
