Machiavelli on War

Machiavelli on War offers a comprehensive interpretation of the philosopher-historian''s treatment of war throughout his writings, from poems and memoranda drafted while he was Florence''s top official for military matters to his posthumous works, The Prince and Discourses on Livy. Christopher Lynch argues that the issue of war permeates the form and content of each of Machiavelli''s works, the substance of his thoughts, and his own activity as a writer, concluding that he was the first great modern philosopher because he was the first modern philosopher of war.

Lynch details Machiavelli''s understanding of warfare in terms of both actual armed conflict and at the intellectual level of thinkers competing on the field of knowledge and belief. Throughout Machiavelli''s works, he focuses on how military commanders'' knowledge of human necessities, beginning with their own, enables and requires them to mold soldiers, o