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Botero: The Reason of State

Botero: The Reason of State

Botero: The Reason of State

Giovanni Botero
Robert Bireley, Loyola University, Chicago
September 2017
Available
Paperback
9781316506721

    Niccolò Machiavelli's seminal work, The Prince, argued that a ruler could not govern morally and be successful. Giovanni Botero disputed this argument and proposed a system for the maintenance and expansion of a state that remained moral in character. Founding an anti-Machiavellian tradition that aimed to refute Machiavelli in practice, Botero is an important figure in early modern political thought, though he remains relatively unknown. His most notable work, Della ragion di Stato, first popularised the term 'reason of state' and made a significant contribution to a major political debate of the time - the perennial issue of the relationship between politics and morality - and the book became a political 'bestseller' in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth century. This translation of the 1589 volume introduces Botero to a wider Anglophone readership and extends this influential text to a modern audience of students and scholars of political thought.

    • Introduces an influential but often overlooked late Renaissance writer to a wider English-speaking audience
    • An important primary source for understanding contemporary reactions to Machiavelli, and the anti-Machiavellian tradition
    • Enriches our understanding of early modern Italian and Counter Reformation political thought

    Product details

    September 2017
    Paperback
    9781316506721
    270 pages
    215 × 137 × 15 mm
    0.33kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Part I. Book 1
    • Part II. Book Two
    • Part III. Book Three
    • Part IV. Book Four
    • Part V. Book Five
    • Part VI. Book Six
    • Part VII. Book Seven
    • Part VIII. Book Eight
    • Part IX. Book Nine
    • Part X. Book Ten
    • Part XI. Appendix A
    • Part XII. Appendix B
    • Part XIII. Appendix C
    • Part XIV. Appendix D.
    • Giovanni Botero
    • Editor
    • Robert Bireley , Loyola University, Chicago

      Robert Bireley is Professor of History Emeritus at Loyola University, Chicago, and has received fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. Recent works include Ferdinand II: Counter-Reformation Emperor, 1578–1637 (Cambridge, 2014).