Prof Lea Ypi

This course is available on the MA in Modern History and MSc in Political Theory. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course is capped at 1 group.

An advanced undergraduate course in the History of Political Thought or Political Philosophy, or following consultation with the course teacher.

This course provides an opportunity to study the works of Machiavelli in-depth. It will focus on themes in his political theory: human nature, morality and politics, the role of the prince, the analysis of virtu and gloria, the conception of the state and the idea of Machiavellian democracy. We will situate Machiavelli’s arguments in their political and theoretical context, as well as exploring both how subsequent theorists understood and employed his ideas, and the major contemporary critical debates in Machiavelli’s scholarship. The seminar will therefore blend intellectual history and political theory.

This course is delivered through seminars totalling a minimum of 20 hours in the Autumn Term. There will be a reading week in Week 6 of the AT for private study and assessment preparation.

Students will be encouraged to submit one formative extended essay plan of no more than 1500 words. This will form the basis of the final summative assessment. The course leader will provide written feedback on this plan, and provide the opportunity for a one-to-one meeting to discuss the plan, but will not provide a numerical grade or classification for it. 

Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. Q. Skinner, trans. R. Price (Cambridge, 1988).

Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, ed. J.C. and P. Bondanella (Oxford, 2003) or ed. B. Crick (Penguin, 1970).

John McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy, (Princeton: Princeton University Press), Introduction, Ch. 1 and Ch. 3.

John M. Najemi (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Skinner, Q., Visions of Politics, Volume II: Renaissance Virtues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Ch. 6 and 7.

Essay (80%, 4000 words) and continuous assessment (20%).