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Machiavelli is popularly known as a teacher of tyrants, a key proponent of the unscrupulous "Machiavellian" politics laid down in his landmark political treatise 'The Prince'. Others cite the 'Discourses on Livy' to argue that Machiavelli is actually a passionate advocate of republican politics who saw the need for occasional harsh measures to maintain political order. Which best characterizes the teachings of the prolific Italian philosopher? With 'Machiavelli's Politics', Catherine H. Zuckert turns this question on its head with a major reinterpretation of Machiavelli's prose works that reveals a surprisingly cohesive view of politics. Starting with Machiavelli's two major political works, Zuckert persuasively shows that the moral revolution Machiavelli sets out in 'The Prince' lays the foundation for the new form of democratic republic he proposes in the 'Discourses'. Distrusting ambitious politicians to serve the public interest of their own accord, Machiavelli sought to persuade them in 'The Prince' that the best way to achieve their own ambitions was to secure the desires and ambitions of their subjects and fellow citizens. In the 'Discourses', he then describes the types of laws and institutions that would balance the conflict between the two in a way that would secure the liberty of most, if not all. In the second half of her book, Zuckert places selected later works - 'La Mandragola', 'The Art of War', 'The Life of Castruccio Castracani', 'Clizia', and 'Florentine Histories' - under scrutiny, showing how Machiavelli further developed certain aspects of his thought in these works.

"We demonstrate the rich diversity and depth of political philosophy in twentieth century essays on the lives and works of eighteen eminent political theorists, including representative of the three main political alternatives--in the first half of the twentieth century, emigres like Hannah Atendt and Leo Strauss who brought a continental perspective to the U.S. after World War II, more recent defenders of libralism, and its many critics. There is no other book on the market like this, aimed at professors and students of political theory"--

Faced with the difficult task of discerning Plato's true ideas from the contradictory voices he used to express them, scholars have never fully made sense of the many incompatibilities within and between the dialogues. In the magisterial Plato's Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert explains for the first time how these prose dramas cohere to reveal a comprehensive Platonic understanding of philosophy. To expose this coherence, Zuckert examines the dialogues not in their supposed order of composition but according to the dramatic order in which Plato indicates they took place. This unconventional ar.

I begin by congratulating the Storeys on their splendid achievement. They have managed to write an eminently readable account of a "conversation" among four complex French thinkers. As a reader learns from the footnotes, their presentation of the unfolding argument is based on an enormous amount of scholarly research, but they never let the scholarship interfere with the smooth flow of their prose.

John P. McCormick has become the leading proponent of a new democratic—or, now, "populist"—reading of Machiavelli. The authors of all three of the other books reviewed here cite McCormick as a source and inspiration; and he has written positive blurbs for their books. In Machiavellian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2011) McCormick argued that Machiavelli's praise of Roman "offices or assemblies that exclude the wealthiest citizens from eligibility; magistrate appointment procedures that combine lottery and election; and political trials in which the entire citizenry acts as ultimate judge over prosecutions and appeals" constitutes "a robust, extra-electoral model of elite accountability and popular empowerment" very different from, and much superior to, the aristocratic "republicanism" attributed to Machiavelli by the "Cambridge school." In Reading Machiavelli: Scandalous Books, Suspect Engagements, and the Virtue of Populist Politics, McCormick extends his previous analysis by offering "original readings of crucial themes within … The Prince, the Discourses, and the Florentine Histories" (1–2). He also expands his critique of competing interpretations of Machiavelli and Rome by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Leo Strauss, John Pocock, and Quentin Skinner.

John Evans announces the question to which all three of these books respond in his title: What is a human? And in the subtitle, he indicates the reason many people today are concerned about the answers offered to that question: what the different answers mean for human rights. As the debates about the fate of a fetus or comatose patient show, definitions of what is human can determine who lives or dies.

The demonstrated willingness of ten knowledgeable scholars to read and comment on parts of my work is, indeed, a great honor. As Mary Keys's introductory remarks show, the contributors are friends. However, although their comments are generally appreciative, they are by no means uncritical. I thus welcome the opportunity to respond to them.