Three Princes: The Ruthless, the Righteous, and the Realist - Three Ways to Read Machiavelli's The Prince

Five centuries of readers have disagreed about what Machiavelli meant. This book does not settle the argument. It organizes it.

Three Princes reads The Prince through three rival lenses - the Ruthless, who takes Machiavelli's coldest counsel at full strength; the Righteous, who insists that moral limits bind even when they cost; and the Realist, who accepts that necessity is real but must be proved rather than announced. All three are applied to all twenty-five chapters. None is permitted to...