SOURCE: "Machiavelli and Modern Statecraft," in The Edinburgh Review, Vol. 226, No. 461, July, 1917, pp. 93–112.

Below, Petre presents an overview of the main characteristics of Machiavelli's thoughts on dipolmacy and government as exhibited in The Prince.

The work by which Nicholas Machiavelli is best known is Il Principe: a treatise popularly regarded as the standard manual of unscrupulous diplomacy. The word Machiavellism, like its counterpart Jesuitism, is a current term with a definite meaning: the former may be employed by an admirer of Machiavelli, as the latter by a lover of the Jesuits. It signifies a philosophy of pure expediency; the subordination of every moral and human consideration to the political needs of the hour.

The Prince is a work as characteristic of its author as any of the others; though we may add that it will be best understood by those to whom it is not the only one...