Machiavelli in Hell
Eric Dursteler, History

Machiavelli’s slight volume, The Prince, was first published in the early sixteenth century, and it almost immediately attracted acclaim as well as condemnation. The text has been touted as a pragmatic manual for obtaining and maintaining power, and its ideas were deemed so dangerous that it was placed on the papacy’s Index of Prohibited Books.

In this course we will examine the dangerous ideas in Machiavelli’s most famous work within their historical context, and in relationship to his other, less well known writings, in an attempt to discover the real Machiavelli. Additionally, we will look at the life of these ideas over the intervening centuries. This course will provide you with the necessary tools for world domination, succeeding at business, and perhaps even becoming a better parent.