Excellent background for the Prince ( )

The Garments of Court and Palace poses an interesting challenge for me. It is essentially a review of Machiavelli’s The Prince. A 288 page review. How much more can one say? How does a reviewer review a review? Worse (or better yet), Bobbitt does in his review what readers of my reviews come to expect of me: a completely different take, with aspects and interpretations no other reviewer has caught, and which sometimes the author has missed, being mired in the trees of the forest.

The discovery here would never have occurred to me. It is that The Prince is actually a study in the evolution of constitutional government, and not a recipe for oppression and subjugation of a people. Only someone steeped in constitutional law and philosophy would interpret it that way, but Bobbitt makes an absolutely commanding case for it. In fact, by massaging Machiavelli into this thesis, Bobbitt solves a number of contradictions and conundrums that reviews have used to criticize Machiavelli and diminish his accomplishment with his book, which by the way, he never called The Prince.

In places, it is positively Talmudic in its incorporation of outside voices and critics. Commentators through the ages are shredded or vetted. He backs his premise thoroughly and completely, enlisting Machiavelli’s words despite centuries of them being interpreted in a completely different direction. It is fascinating.

Millions of us (had to) read The Prince in high school. Our teachers drummed into us exactly what it was about, and all our appreciation of it was framed in that context. But it’s wrong. And that makes this book compelling, valuable, and important.
I’m delighted to have come across it. ( )