SOURCE: Kendall, Willmoore. Review of Thoughts on Machiavelli, by Leo Strauss. Philosophical Review 75, no. 2 (April 1966): 247-54.

In the following laudatory assessment of Thoughts on Machiavelli, Kendall asserts that Strauss provides greater insight into Machiavelli's work and place within the history of political philosophy than earlier critics.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Machiavelli can be cited on both sides of all the issues in political philosophy. He cannot, for instance, be cited on the side of that rule by “gentlemen” which the classical political philosophers regarded as the best régime short of rule by the philosopher-king; or in favor of the view, common to both the classical and the biblical tradition, that rulers, as they go about the business of ruling, should practice moral virtue; or even in favor of the time-honored doctrine according to which tyranny is to be condemned because it subordinates the...