The World in Time

Erica Benner

Friday, July 07, 2017

Statue of Machiavelli outside the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

The life and thought of Niccolò Machiavelli has been badly misunderstood, argues historian Erica Benner. Far from his usual depiction as a politically amoral henchman, Machiavelli was in fact a prescient critic of princely power and religious zealotry. He lived the problems of government and fought to change a corrupt world.

 

Lewis H. Lapham talks to Erica Benner, author of Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli in His World.

 

Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for this podcast has been provided by Lisette Prince through the EJMP Fund for Philanthropy. Additional support was provided by James J. “Jimmy” Coleman Jr.

Discussed in this episode

More Podcasts

November 22, 2019

The World in Time:

Matt Stoller

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. More

August 16, 2019

The World in Time:

Ziya Tong

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World. More

April 05, 2019

The World in Time:

Philipp Blom

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Philipp Blom, author of Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present. More

June 15, 2011

The World in Time:

To End All Wars

Lewis Lapham talks with author Adam Hochschild about the struggles of the antiwar movement in World War I–era Britain. More

August 30, 2011

The World in Time:

To the Paradise City

Lewis Lapham talks with author Brook Wilensky-Lanford about the search for Adam and Eve’s hometown. More

Lady in Colonial Dress Striking a Gentleman with Her Fan, by Thure de Thulstrup, 1895.

June 25, 2021

The World in Time:

Alan Taylor

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783–1850. More