"To Know Machiavelli" is the only book since 1927 that brings together a complete, critical examination of Niccolò Machiavelli's political ideas in the context of his personal and historical circumstance. This volume acquires further relevance on the eve of the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli's "Discorsi Sopra la Prima Deca di Tito Livio," which reflects his realistic spirit, love for his country, and vocation for the republic and freedom.
To act effectively on the political, social, and economic reality, one must first gain awareness. In that sense, one must consider that people relate to knowledge in two primary ways. First, people can understand knowledge by themselves. Second, people can discern what others comprehend. In the same way, knowledge is the ability to be aware of the actual reality of things, not how they are imagined. Knowing is discerning being from seeming.
This book is directed towards an educated public interested in knowing Niccolò Machiavelli's thoughts as the author of the first great political discovery of modern times: politics is autonomous from morals and religion as a result of the distinction between what "is" and what "should be."
