couple of us. so it wasn't just chambers. and the documents and these other -- there's a reference. it is conclusive that hiss was what chamber citrix i just want to make that clear. it wasn't just one, you know, two men disagree and. >> yes? >> i teach in history department here. and i want -- [inaudible]. i just want to make a quick observation about whittaker and also pose a question. to the observation is i think for those of you who haven't read it, "witness" is really fascinating book and i think people tend to think what's i think about it is the indictment of communism. but it's also actually a fascinating account of conversion to communism come and

about half of the book is as about the very early expenses in the 1930s about why in fact he became a columnist and that's not always as obvious about the book that if insulin about it. so my question, i have been writing about jacob -- j. edgar hoover at the moment. my question is really to m. stanton evans. is it because brought out, not a particularly great reputation in to the public consciousness in terms of at least some of the roles he played during the late '40s and early '50s in terms of the battle against mccarthyism. and it is wondering how you see hoover's role in all this, both in terms of your own terms, his relationship with chambers, with bentley and other figures as to where you come down about j. edgar hoover? >> i am a great j. edgar hoover fan. i spent untold hours at the fbi

going through the archives there. i have in my possession over 100,000 pages of fbi files, which i got legally through the freedom of information. [laughter] regarding fbi agents in the. elizabeth bentley by the way when she went to the fbi did here in new haven. this is where she went to the fbi, right here. and she was the other major witness against all these suspects. hoover was a stalwart patriot, no question about it. he was meticulous in record-keeping. the gc, did anybody see the movie that came out, marvel casting of leonardo dicaprio as j. edgar hoover. whoever came up with that? i would have preferred brad pitt frankly for that rolled. [laughter] but in any event, the movie has

falsehoods but most of what we are given as alleged history, all present company excepted, is that. i'm reminded of what mary mccarthy said about william holt. every word she writes is a lie, including and and of the. and that's my view, jaundiced view of what is out there about who. i think he has been smeared for the same reasons that chamber was smeared. finally, hoover himself was very skeptical of chambers. these fbi guys didn't just accept anybody, telling them stuff. they didn't accept barely. they spent a lot of time backtracking, checking. i might say invasively checking up on people through wiretaps number which there are many in fbi files, transcript. i would say once you read raw wiretaps you never want to go

back. that's the real stuff. this is unedited, the real thing. and what they did over and over again was to find out who was telling the truth. and if i determine that chambers was the one telling the truth. long before the case became public. >> professor gaddis, did you want to say something? >> it's really a question i want to raise, and it's something that puzzled me in reading drinking. it's something that has puzzled me in thinking through the new literature that is come out on all of these issues, and this is the invisibility, relative and if visibility of wallace. this is a seems to me a really increasing situation -- intriguing situation. it is documentation indicating very strongly that wallace was regularly reporting to the

kremlin, starting in 1945 and 46 when still in the truman administration cabinet, this point as secretary of commerce. also one thing that i came up with with regard to i.t. 40 campaign is the frustration of the secret effort a trendy and general marshall had made to at least approach the soviets about possibility of negotiation, and that was blown wide open in a way that strongly suggests contact between wallace and the kremlin at the time that wallace was running on the progressive party ticket for president, third party ticket for president. so i asked myself, who is the real hero in this story? in this whole history. someone has gotten a bad rap so far in the whole whittaker chambers, alger hiss case, and somebody who really got a bad rap from george f. kennan, but is is the president of the

united states, franklin d. roosevelt who, for whatever reason, and we may never know the reason, don't wallace from the ticket in 1944. and sent him on an inspection trip to siberia. [laughter] what he confused gulags with collective farms. now, if you want to play the counterfactual game, and someone should write i think a philip roth's counterfactual novel, change just one thing. truman -- or roosevelt does not dump wallace from the ticket in 44, and then wallace becomes president of the united states at the time that all of this stuff is breaking loose. what would've happened at that point? why don't more people talk about this? >> we have time for one more question. i'm going to use my prerogative and see if i can gauge lead maybe with this question. in the famous letter to my

children, the forward to the book, "witness," chambers writes on, quote, on page 16. communism is what happened when in the name of mind, meant -- men freedom social god, a little bit, although below that, there has never been a society or a nation without god, but history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations that became indifferent to god and died. then he says, sums up, the crisis of the western world exist to the degree in which it is indifferent to god but it exists to the degree the western will i choice shared communism, materialist vision. i guess i would like to ask more about whittaker chambers materialism, what, from my three expert panelists hee

what is whittaker chambers materialism. how did he understand materialism? could easy liberalism as well as communism sharing that same disease? >> it seems to me that if you listen to that particular quote, you can see what bill buckley was so attracted and drawn to whittaker chambers. and you can see why he was inspired and so anxious, really anxious to enroll the whittaker chambers as a member of the editorial board of "national review" when he was forming it, wanted desperately to have chambers on board. and if you begin to think about what can draw together people, and that's what i'm particularly interested in, written about and talk about and prefer to hear hibringing together the various strains of conservatism that the conservatives, traditional conservatives, libertarians and others, what to do that, what could bring them together?

i think one level it certainly was the realization that the communism, as personified by the soviet union, was a clear and present danger, and that bill reached out to traditionalists like russell kirk, to libertarians like frank meyer and said, please, let's come together. and let's form this magazine, and let's form this movement. that was also part of what he was trying to do. i think at the same time that come if you look at whittaker chambers life, i think he was very indifferent to the realism. it didn't really matter to him m at all, and you can see that light -- there are all kinds of things which, for example, after biting "witness" they were booked contracts which he was offered. he could have made an extraordinary amount of money writing a sequel, a follow-up, any of the book or number of books about it, but he said what had to be said and he decided to retire to the form they're in

westminster on the western shore of maryland. so i don't think he was a materialist at all. incirlik that was not interested bill buckley at all either. and without of interested i think the conservative movement at that time. confronted as it was by this danger which became so clear to them in the soviet and in communist. >> thank you very much. we reconvene in 10 minutes. [applause] spin what to do about the conflict? it took the president to develop enhanced. and his answer was two states for two people. jewish state and a palestinian state. but only when that palestinian state would be a decent, stable, peaceful, democratic,

non-corrupt government. first that means arafat has to go spent an insight into the competence and fairness of the bush administration's policy on the israeli-palestinian conflict. sunday at 10 p.m. eastern. part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. spent an italian diplomat and philosopher niccolo machiavelli wrote "the prince" 500 ago. next, a boston university form on the immediate and long-term effect of the book. this is an hour and a half. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to this evening, an event to mark the 500th anniversary of the parents of machiavelli's "the prince." my name is james johnson a member of the department of history. this is the second of three moments the history department is marking of landmarks in

history. we have marked the 50th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis, and later this year we will mark the martin luther king speech at the lincoln memorial. tonight we're talking about "the prince." we've invited to guess to our eminently suited to do what we want to do, which is to look at the past in its own terms, and to look at the ways the past is still present now. that is, edward muir here is one of this country's leading preeminent historians of renaissance italy, and michael ignatieff, ma thinker, writer, a public figure directly engaged in global affairs. and very for my with electoral politics. "the prince" is perhaps the starkest anatomy of power ever written. it follows its clear intent without fear and without hesitation. that is, to show rulers how to

survive in a world as it is, not in the world as it should be. it's only criterion is success, goodness, justice, honesty, virtue, valuable only if they help you succeed. and if not, you should neglect them. it is more important to a pure good and honest and just than to be so. and one should not hesitate to lie, to defeat, and to do whatever else is necessary to hold power. this is a book that focuses famously on the means of power. people should either be caressed or crushed. if you do them minor damage, they will get their revenge. but if you crippled them, there is nothing they can do. if you need to injure someone, do it in a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance. this is a book that talks about

cruelty that is well used and cruelty that is poorly used. this is a book that talks about cultivating an enemy so that you can crush him publicly and, therefore, intimidate other people. machiavelli writes in her to get a secure hold on the new territory, one needs merely eliminate the surviving members of the family of the previous rulers. this is been called the first modern book on politics. that is, what underlies human relations is power and its laws are purely human artifacts made for human ends. it is relentlessly secular. it mentions moses, and the point is possibly large. an example of a leader who came

to power through his own authority. machiavelli, depending on your point of view, is either a constant realist or a cynic. he promises to describe how things are in the real world, and as he rides, not waste time with a discussion of an imagined were pretty much anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover that he has been taught how to destroy himself, and not how to preserve himself. the book gives aarticular view of human nature, machiavelli writes that humans are ungrateful, fickle, deceptive, a voice of danger, eager to gain. he says that it is natural and normal to take things that do not belong to you. it sketches a view of how we can and cannot control our fate, even the best prepared and direct events only half the

time. chance controls the rest. fortune favors the bold. this is a book with silences. the biggest silence is its lack of all moral evaluation. how do we read it quick do we read it as a manual for success? how do we evaluate its author? according to the effectiveness of his strategies, or is the author himself implicated morally by writing homely and without his approval -- home late -- about the effectiveness of assassination, wars of aggression, colonization and the necessary atrocities. the other silences in this book, whether there are moral laws that transcend the naked pursuit of power, or that the laws of a

particular states. the status of what we now call universal human rights. such silences take us from the realm of the city state of renaissance italy to modern global politics. a book called the independence of nations, david prompted was a member of this universities tackle the, invokes -- to describe what he called a jungle of world politics. he says if god does not exist, then anything is permitted. in these circumstances, people ought to act out of self-interest, even if it leads them to crime. this is a reasonably true definition about states. at the worst, states are beasts run the jungle of world politics, killing when they're hungry, and obeying no laws but those of their own nature. where they are concerned, his

terrible words ring true, anything is permitted. to read "the prince" today forces us to think about machiavelli in a global context, about what the rules of ethics apply in the jungle of world politics. it may recall to us the means that slobodan milosevic employed in the 1990s in the name of the greater -- greater serbia. mass murder, deportation, rape as a strategy of war, political assassination. it may also make us question the grounds on which we claim that these are crimes against humanity. reading "the prince" may put us in mind of things done in the name of national security, the invasion of iraq, waterboarding, collateral damage of drone strikes. targeting terrorists.

readers have asked such questions over the past 500 years in ways that make sense to them. meaning of this author only by his book, and they condemned him accordingly. his effigy was burned by the jazz was in -- the book was put on the index, of prohibited books that same year, 1559. it was removed from the index in 1890. the english cardinal reginald poe called "the prince" of book written by satan's hand. in the 20 century, machiavelli has been called the teacher of evil and associated with the nazis. but to study machiavelli in his own time is to give a fuller and possibly different sense of the man. a man raised by people of humble means the value to books, a man who was a voracious reader as a

child. a man who wrote that whenever he took a walk he had a book by don to -- dante or other such under a man who cling have imaginary conversations with the agents at the end of a long day. he was a scholar, a poet, a playwright. he was fiercely loyal to the city of florence. he was a member of its government for 14 years under the republic. he was an eloquent defender of an independent and engaged citizenry. machiavelli signed a letter to his friend, francesco giardini this way. niccolo machiavelli, historian, comic author, tragic author. the particular circumstances of his writing "the prince" in 1513 may be relevant. the republic had just fallen. than that achieved were about to be restored to power. machiavelli was suddenly out of

a job. he wrote this book in the introduction to lorenzo domenici. he offered it as a recommendation. this is the context that has led many readers to study the silences of "the prince," to read between the lines, to ask if there is a deeper message to the book. and some have concluded that it is an attack on tyranny, chronicling the crimes of a desperate so that careful readers will draw their own right conclusions. some have seen this as a defense of the rule of equals of a republic. and even as catholics like and it to this subversive martin luther and announcing it, protestants read it as an attack on the tyranny of catholicism. during the french revolution, people said that this

disembodied the ideals of the revolution by showing the tyranny it was meant to overthrow. for all to say that "the prince" has been all things to all people, in the last five and years it has been many more things to many more kinds of people that it's simple tone might suggest. today, it is one of the most assigned books in the greatest number of university departmen departments, including philosophy, political science, international relations, religion, and many, many others. those of us who have taught machiavelli know that the book can still cause outrage. those of us have read the scholarship on machiavelli know that it still provides original and surprising readings. but perhaps the dominant reading of "the prince" today is neither outrage nor original insight. perhaps the dominant reading today is a kind of breezy

acceptance. one that skas over any puzzlement or worry. perhaps it's an attitude in which we flatter ourselves with our sophistication, our worldliness. perhaps it's an attitude that says we have seen this before, we're not shocked, we'll just take it in stride and maybe use a few trips along what if again. here's a future books with tremor in the time. management of machiavelli, a prescription for success in your business. machiavelli for women. this is from the wars of intimacy to the battles of public life, whether confronting bosses, competitors or lovers. the greatest power belongs to the woman who dares to use the subtle weapons that are hers alone. or machiavelli for moms.

the effective government of children. even in 2013, or made especially in 2013 we should not be complacent about this book, after 500 years it is still potent. it is still possibly dangerous. it is still rich in its silences. it is still deceptively simple. it is still effective in forcing us to consider questions of right and wrong, the exercise of power, domestically and globally. we are fortunate this evening to have to engage in thoughtful commentators on this book. the first is professor edward muir, he is among a handful of early modern historians here and abroad who have redefined the field. he's a pioneer in methods of

cultural history. he looks at what the details of everyday life tell us about structures of power and about the nature of hierarchies and about the reach of institutions. professor muir combines the tickets and detailed research with a larger vision that draws from across the social sciences to look at group behavior, human psychology, and the meaning of ritual. his subjects have included violence, urban ceremonies and festivals, religious nonconformists, theatergoers, and learned societies. professor muir is the professor in the arts and sciences at northwestern university in chicago. he's been recognized for his teaching by the mccormick professorship in teaching excellence. is the author of four books and numerous articles. he has co-authored or edited another five books and the recipient of many prizes,

including the american historical association's prize for first best book in history. that is for his book civic ritual and renaissance venice, a book that is now a classic in the field. and the aha's price for the best book, an italian history. is received that twice. for his book on civic ritual, as well as -- and in 2012 he received the distinguished service award for his lifetime achievement across his career by the andrew mellon foundation. professor muir. [applause] >> thank you, jim. it's a great pleasure to be here and to think and talk about machiavelli, who, in fact, abbreviated version of his name has been my password for years. i won't tell you exactly what it is. when asked to present on this

occasion about "the prince" i turned to my bookshelf and i was actually quite surprised. i had far more books on machiavelli than on any other subject, and certainly on any other person to and i never really systematically attempted to collect on machiavelli. it's just that when you're a college professor, people send you books and give them to you. and there's an enormous number. let me just read a few titles but you've heard some already. fortune is a river, leonardo da vinci and niccolo machiavelli's magnificent dream to change the course of florentine history. is all about a plan to deviate the river, not with a normal thing you about. fortune is a woman. gender and politics and the plot of niccolo machiavelli. feminist interpretations of machiavelli. machiavelli in modern leadersh leadership. some of the titles jim just

mentioned. why machiavelli's iron rules are as timely today as five centuries ago. niccolo, snow. machiavelli's virtue. machiavellian love. machiavellian health. i also found 113,000 hits on google scholar to the word machiavelli, books and articles. and that, of course, leaves out many things in foreign languages which rescinds us with such a difficult problem of how do we make sense of a man who wrote a deceptively simple book that has been interpreted in so many different ways. is machiavelli -- as the late 16th century equivalent of the devil? my grandmother who was full of all kinds of old-fashioned isn't coming in, when she was angry with my brothers and i used as a dip in the nick out of your pants. i your pants. i've no idea what she was

talking about until it became a scholar and realized it was machiavelli. he was there all along. you see the most sexual or sexist theorists. let me read you one of the most famous passages in "the prince." get in the right place, excuse me. at the end of chapter 25. i'm certainly convinced of this, that it is better to be impetuous and cautious. because fortune is a woman, and it is necessary in order to keep her down to beat her and to struggle with her. and it is seen that she more often allows herself to be taken over by men who are impetuous than by those who make old advances and then being a woman, she is always the friend of young men. for they are less cautious, more aggressive, and they commander

with more audacity. so are we to understand this as a metaphor of rape as a fundamental way to understand politics? or is he in fact, as i think most of my colleagues who specialize in a time renaissance issue would say, is, in fact, dedicated republican, a dedicated believer in not what we would call democracy certainly, but in the liberty of a citizenry to exercise its own individual and collective will? ..

western europeans and perhaps eye tal -- italians most directly and viefdly were torn between two largely modes of perceiving realty. end of quote. being included the republic. one is the universal community of a divinely created body in the roman catholic church and headed by the pope. the other was civic republicanism that particular manifest asian of a political order and a particular time and place which was embodied typically in the statutes and customs of local regime we might now call constitutions.

they labeled this first part of the dichotomy mid evil, the second renaissance. he didn't intend these two labels to be historical periods. in fact ideal types as a way of helping us to understand the nature of this conflicts two ideal types he sees as having existed in a tension with one another. the difference between the two positions was an utterly different conception of the general -- nature of order. every other difference between them can be related to this. it's all about order. the medieval position places every element of human experience within a conflict order a definitive pattern arranged unchanging ideal. which ranked things, values and

persons higher or lower. any change violated this universal order, was there for pious immorale, indefensible. the renaissance position in contrast failed to perceive any coherence in the universe, rejected hierarchy as a principle instead perceived only the insees ens flux of things. a principle rooted fundamentally in in history in the notion of changed. one system was closed in general and the other open in particular. renaissance republicanism, civic republicanism in contrast to the medieval position did not identify the substance of human nature as the intellect but as a -- this is clear in all machiavelli figures.

a man who immigrated the free exercise of will under the condition of political liberty. not only in his famous book about republic, the discourse but also in a very interesting way throughout the prints. as he put, -- turned the page too soon. the renaissance republicanism saw no absolute structure in the nature much chicagos. no clear -- no ground for classifying some elements of the universe as higher and others lower. no reasonable demand confirming reality consisted a unchanging form. it accepted inconsistency, contradiction, and paradox as

insurmountable. it's preceasely those three conditions that i think are evident in machiavelli's thought. inconsistency with contradiction and paradox, something that didn't bother him. something he celebrated. now one of the particularly interesting things i think we have discovered in recent years about the prints is that it is really part of just a segment of an ongoing dialogue. in particular a dialogue that machiavelli was having with his friend francesco, whose response between machiavelli recently been examined by john in a book. it's quite clear through the letters beginning about 500 years ago this month, through the rest of 1513 that machiavelli was thinking about two books.

first the discourse on the ten decades of liberty which was a book he started to write about republic and interrupted that and started to write the prints and finished the discourses later on. so the prints is wedged within the writing of a book about republic and liberty. and he talks about how he's thinking evolves in the letters, and so that in many ways he sees this maybe nos a finished product but one more letter, one more open ended segment in an ongoing dialogue between friend. not as a type philosophical treaty often understood and taught, but as a dialogue. who was mack knock -- machiavelli? as jim mentioned, he comes from a reasonably prominent but not

most distinguished family in florence. they weren't aristocrats, the machiavelli produced 54 priors up until niccolo's time, which meant they were city councilmen, mayor of a neighborhood. they had a strong republican traditions within the family. the father had been jailed, tortured and executed three generations before niccolo. fran this is the world that niccolo machiavelli inherited. his own father, bernardo, was a bookish lawyer ineffect yule, impoverished, really one of the lesser lights in the machiavelli clan who had in some ways made a little money by writing indexes

for other books. he gained clearly to some degree his interest in books from his father. his interest in politics from a family long committed to political behavior. but at the same time he was no longer really in the main stream of florentine life. his own fave family, he was married and had seven children, although we know he seems to be reasonably affection with his wife. he had numerous affairs and fell madly in love with a woman at one. his letters, the passage i readies played a deep am bev lens about women, trusting them, and seeing their influence in the political world throughout "the prince," for example, he's warning the prince not appear to be a femme .

let me talk about the political career and what it might help us understand what happens in the prince. -- "the prince." he's born in 1469, as a young man he was a period -- beginning in 1434 between 134 and 19 -- son and great grandson control the city of florence even though they personally never held significant public office. florence was a republic to vote -- to hold office you had to be a member of guild. country aristocrats was exiled there was a list of 150 names of family. if you have the last name you can't walk through the gate of the city of florence because of

the antiaristocratted tendency. by the middle of the 15th century rich bankers were able to subvert the republic and control everything from behind the scenes. foreign diplomats came to florence in the 1430s they would go to the town hall, present their credential, then get out of there as fast as they can. walk down the street and go down the palace where the work took place. what this is, i think what this situation historical situation contributed to machiavelli's thought was a radical distinction between authority and power. machiavelli, when he contemplates that period, can see an exists typical throughout the print it doesn't matter what your title is, or how you -- what authority you have. what matters is how you exercise

power. they had no authority at all of the power. 1494, they blew it. the french are exiled and replaced by a charismatic profit who becomes a dictator he's controlling things from the pulpit. there's still election and republic officially, but machiavelli saw him as shifty as a lier. and the experience of him for machiavelli and his generation was informative experience for him. it was for his generation much perhaps as the vietnam war was for the baby boomer generation in this country as perhaps 9/11

is for my own students. after he was arrested and burned in 1598, you can still see the spot where it's marked where he was burned, within three weeks machiavelli gets a job. he applied for the job several times during his time. he was turned down. he's elected to the position of second chancellor in the florentine republic a job can he held for fifteen years. a job where he was clearly known as the man, the servant of the most powerful member of the new florentine republic. he became an outsider on the inside of a second rate power. he went on numerous diplomatic missions to the rome, france,

the paying sei and was florence's representative where he directly observes borgia's attempt to conquer. he writes back letters virtually every day from the mission to florence. he's never the ambassador, he's the guy behind the scenes that does the gritty negotiations while the ambassador goes to the fancy bank quit and niccolo is in the kitchen within the other representatives of servant of other representatives and figures out what is going on. he writes extraordinarily frank letters letters from france back home to florence he writes, the french respect only those who are willing to fight or to pay. since you have shown yourself incapable of either, they consider you sirs as misters

zero. he manipulated, control, trick his way to find information to value. i spent much of my career reading reports and when you read machiavelli's letters, they are stunning. not only is he probably the best prose stylist in italian from the period, but he is letter after letter there is this enlit call quality which he's looking what is at stake and what the sources of power are for florence. it's not just gossip or who is going to fight whom as you find in many other diplomatic report. it's analysis all the time. in 1512, the they don't both we are ther is raid of election. they become in effect dictators of the city of florence, machiavelli loses his job, he's accused of conspiracy against

the -- his name is found analyst. he's arrested and tortured and eventually released and retires to his farm. you can go there today and see the house and the tavern across the street where he hung out. it's there where the literary career takes off. he writes the two renaissance comedy "the prince" and "history of florence "numerous of other works. he found the prospect, especially in the first year the year he's writing "the prince" deeply depressing. i feel useless to myself, my relative, and friends. it's the depressed state he describes his writing of "the prince" to his old friend. probably the most famous letter written in the renaissance. it's a letter in which he talks

about his day of collecting wood to sell back to his old friends in florence and how they cheat him about catching birds to feed his family. how he spends the afternoon with an inkeeper, a butcher, a miller, and two bakers gambling and fight over the bet and wagers, then the end of the evening the famous passage about him returning home. when evening comes, i return to my home, and i go in to my study and on the threshold i take my every day clothes which are covered with mud and i put on regale and curial robes. these were the old robes of office and dressed in a more appropriate manner. i enter to the ancient court of ancient men and am welcomed by them kindly. and there i taste the food that

alone is mine and for which i was born. and there i'm not ashamed to speak to them, to ask them the reasons for their action and that, in their humanity answer me and for four hours i feel no boredom, no -- i do not tremble at the thought of death nor do i longer fear poverty. i become completely part of them. this is, of course, the renaissance "fantasy." it begins in many. ways the humanist enterprise by writing letters to cicero that had been dead for 1,342 years. machiavelli is engaged in the same "fantasy" conversation with the ancient. it's reading what he is doing.

he describes it as a conversation as them answering back. he's describing this to his good friend with whom he's also continuing and a conversation and dialogue. as he says that knowledge does not exist without the retention by memory. i have noted down what i learned from their conversation, and i compose a little work, "the prince" where i delve as deeply as i can to thoughts on the subject. discussing what a principality is, what kind there are, how they are acquired, how they are maintained, and why they are lost. so in some ways it's an open-ended kind of book. a book that doesn't have the final answers. let me briefly -- in kind of concluding here, turn to one of the core chapters. the most famous part of the

book, ones most disturbing perhaps to people are chapters 16-17-18 where he asked these binary questions. is it better to be generous or miserly. miserly? is it better to be loved or feared? the answer feared. is it better to be cruel or merciful? well, certainly not merciful but only cruel up to a point. is it better to be a fox or a lion? answer, both. then we come to this famous part, perhaps the part that has generated the most controversy in the literature. let me read it to you so everyone is clear about what we're talking about. i want you to notice a few things, first, the repetition of the word "necessity" or

"necessary" that is a guide to how he is thinking. therefore, it's not necessary for prince to have all of the above mentioned quality, those these are the virtue. it's necessary for him to appear to have them. further more, i shall be so bold as to assert this that having them and practicing them at all times is harmful, and appearing to have them is useful. for instance, -- here the virtue, to seem merciful, faithful, humane, forthright and to be so. his mind should be disposed in such a way it shouldn't become necessary to be so. he'll know how to change to the contrary. in other words, kind of instinctive pragmatism and essential to understand this, that a prince and a essentially

a new prince cannot observe all of those things by which men are considered good, for in order to maintain the state he is often obliged necessary to act against the promise against charity, and religion. therefore, it's necessary that he have a mind ready to turn itself according to the way the winds of fortune and the changeability of affairs require him. and as i said above, as long as it is possible he should not stray from the good, but he should know how to enter in to evil when necessity -- again the word necessity -- commands. a prince, therefore must be careful never to let anything slip from the lips which is not full of the five qualities mentioned above. he should appear upon seeing --

seeing and hearing him all mercy and faithfulness, all integrity, all kindness, all religion. and there is nothing more necessary than to seem to possess this last quality, that is religion. now -- so far we have got necessity, a pier one way, you don't necessarily have to behavior that way. here is why. judge lore by their eyes and hands everyone can see but feel can see. everyone sees what you seem to be perceive what you are. and those few who do do not dare to counter deduct of the opinion of the many majesty of the state

defend them and in the action of all men coming up on one famous phrase especially a prince where there's no impartial ash tour. must consider the final result. one must consider the final result. this is passage often mistranslated in italian. it's a passage often mistranslated as the end justified the means. it doesn't say that. there's nothing about justification here. what the whole two paragraphs are about are about necessity. late prince, therefore, to act and seize and main the state. this is what the necessity is to maintain the state we'll be judged honorable and praised by all. for ordinary people, are always deceived by princes. and by the outcome of things. and in the world there's nothing

but ordinary people. there's no room for the few while the many have a place to lean on. now, let me just finally say that this passage, which claims to -- seems to be condescending to the many, to the impoverished masses. in fact a rather strange comparison to what happens throughout the rest of the print and in the discourses. because you have to -- in the end, ask where does power come from? it doesn't actually come from this manipulation of appearances. that's just what you domain contain power. power ultimately comes from the very people being deceived. they are the source of power throughout "the prince" when he talks about fortress, invading foreign territory, almost every

other element of power. ultimately derived from, he says, the people. there is a notion of popular sovereignty which permeates this text and certainly very clear also in the other writings, and i would argue it's what often we do is we mistake the sources of power with the technique of maintaining the power, and that ultimately the prince must respect the people. f they hate him as machiavelli says several times in "the prince," they will get rid of him. thank you. [applause] as scholar, as novelist, teacher, and publish official. michael ignatieff is the

authority of twelve books translated to 18 languages on subjects ranging from political economy and the penal system to human rights, nationalism, and the bull kins and the political ethics in an age of war on terrorism. as the scholar, michael ignatieff has provided an eloquent defense of human rights framed in a way that acknowledges their origin in a particular time and particular place. his work is not naive about modern tyranny that deny rights by violence or ideology. his work is not blind to the cohearsive and destablizing element of western campaign of liberation. in human rights, as politics, a book from 2001, he writes what he calls humble humanism, that bases universal rights on shared human capacities, the capacities of em pa think, conscious, and

free will. on things that define the individual with an ton my and choice. as a novelist michael ignatieff writes with economy and penetrating human insight and gripping immediacy. his most recent novel "called charlie johnson in to the flames" about journalist without illusions who is swept up in the violence of war. he's motivated by a sense of justice that only he can bring, and he's destroyed. as public figure, michael ignatieff has served on the independent international commission on closet vow, 1999, and 2001. he's been a member of parliament of canada 2006 through 2011. he was the leader of the liberal party of canada between 2009, 2011, he is a member of the queens privy council for

canada. he hold now a joint appointment at the school of global affairs at the university of toronto and the kennedy school at harvard university. michael ignatieff. [applause] it's an enormous pleasure to be here in the far off days when i was an honest man. i got ph.d. in history. it was kind of wonderful to listen to historians, again, and hear what only historians can do. which is to take a text like "the prince" and going understand all the human conditions the historical conditions which it became possible. i will -- i hope, having heard this from both of you such a fine description first of the renaissance context, then the sense of his after life.

the two of you have give me a place to talk about the role of machiavelli in his relevance. if you have ever done politics, i thought it would be an interesting thing to do. what is it about a book written in 1513 that seems so stingingly relevant when you actually throw your hat to the political ring? what is it about this book, more than almost any other book that we teach, that seems to give a politician lessons he can't afford not listen to. i'm going to surprise you by not talking about exactly the famous chapters about dissembling, about appearing, about lying, all of those standards areas in which machiavelli appears to have such shocking relevance to

contemporary politics. i'm going it talk about one word in machiavelli and that's fortuna because i have to say, when i was in politics, it was the first time i understood exactly what he meant by fortuna. fortuna, in machiavelli and professor muir would do a better job telling you fortuna comes from in the language of the renaissance. for me fortuna is fortune, chance, contingency, luck, fate, and until you actually have been in politics, you don't know what the words mean. and that, i think, will be my theme, which is that one of the things that makes machiavelli enduringly relevant is his very unique grasp of time as a factor

in politics. and that's really what i want to talk about. one of the places, one of the most famous remarks about time in politics was made by british prime minister, you probably know this one, but it's one of my favor stories of politics. they asked harold mcmillan, the british prime minister between 1959 and the early '60s what was the toughest thing about being a prime minister? and harrold mcmillan looked at the questioner for awhiler and said, events, my boy. events. [laughter] this is a deeply wise remarking. one that machiavelli would have understood immediately. time is the median in which politicians work, and political judgment is a sense of timing.

the unique and specific genius of a great politician is a sense of when the time is right and when the time is not right. when an idea of time has come and when an idea's time has gone. and of all the they theorist of politics i think machiavelli is the one that understands that most deeply, and this deep understanding of time comes through famously in chapter 25. you took us through 17, 18, 19, 20. my heart was in my mouth. i thought professor muir was going to do 25 and i would have nothing to say. [laughter] in chapter, 25 there's a wonderful long passage about fortuna. which many of you know and i'll read a little bit from it. i compare her to one of those

horrible rivers when they get angry break their banks knock down trees and building. strip the soil from one place and send it someplace else. everyone flees before them. everyone gives away in the face of the own rush. nobody can resist them at any point. but all though they are so powerful, this does not men, when the water recede, cannot make repairs and build banks and barriers. so you have this famous image of the river breaking the bank. the fortune breaks, it's like a violent river, an act of nature, men plan, men dispose, men and women build their habitations and fortune breaks through and breaks apart the preventive structure, the institutions that

men create to master time. but notice there are two images that work here. first of all, fortuna is like the flood. it's recurrent, it's unavoidable, it's un predictable like hurricane sandy. it's not providence. one of the ways to understand the understanding of time. fortuna is not providence. there's no guiding destiny here. fortuna is as unpredictable as a natural disaster. it's not guided by a benevolent hand. one of the reasons that machiavelli is so shockingly modern is the sense of stuff happens. unpredictable, violent change occurs. that's the world we're in.

the minute you read machiavelli, you're in our world. the world of the unpredictable. the unforeseeable, the violent, the unforseen. that seems, to me, a tremendously powerful and modern aspect of machiavelli. equally, at the same time as the quotation shows, men are not prisoners of fortune. the whole burden of chapter 25 is to say, yes, stuff happens. the unpredictable occurs. the catastrophe occur. the river overflows. men are not prisoners of the. they need not be resigned to their fate. it's a very strong emphasis, i think, professor muir made this point about the tremendous importance of will in machiavelli. will against fortune. will against fate, will against chance, will against contingency. these are tremendously strong

and powerful and resonate themes in machiavelli. for tuna does not preach resignation. it's not a line of resignation in machiavelli's writing. politicians, in other words were people in charge of public affairs in florence cannot predict the unpredictable. they can't be sure when the river is going to overflow. they can put up designings and dams -- dikes and dams and persuade their fellow citizens to do what they can to mitigate the impact of fortune and fate. they can't prevent the worst but they can channel the flood downstream. mitigate harms. and seek to control fortune to the degree they can and the chapter ends with the known passage about fortune being a

woman. it's a vital passage. it's an unattractive passage. other passages in machiavelli make it clear he had pretty formable respect as it happens, for women as political actors. but the metaphor is there to say will, human will, in this case, masculine will can control the unpredictable, can reak to fate do not have to submit to fate and contingency and chance with pious resignation. and so that is a tremendously important element of his vision of what political life is about. political life is reacting to chance, to contingency, to fate. he lived it as our wonderful avocation of the context makes clear.

he's in powerful what is it 1498 to 1512, suddenly boom, he's in jail. he's being hung up. he's being tortured. and he's writing merely a year later after he's had, what for any human being is the most shocking experience contingency and misfortune. he builds it up one minute you're up. one minute you're done. you're in a jail cell begging for your life. that's his sense of what political life is like. the radical meaningless, even, encounter with fortuna. but unlike what is very, i find, inspiring in a way about machiavelli is that he, the

famous letter. it's not a lament at his misfortune, really. it's not a -- it's not metaphysical inquiry to the mystery of time. he simply said that's life. that's how we live. that's how we are. that, again, it seems to me, is a profoundly modern view. i think crucially a trammingic vision of time. in a nontragic vision of political action. you get a much sharper vision of the tragedy political -- machiavelli is a portrait of human folly, equally it's a very, very deep portrait of

human stubbornness, persistence, willingness to get back up on your feet after you have been dumped in the mud by the fates and fortune. it's a nontragic vision of time in which men are rarely the equal of their times. but some men can be found to be the measure of their times. most men aren't, but some men step up. that's, i think, his deep sense of why human life is not tragic. some fools will fail but other men will be found equal to their moment. he says at one point since -- men stubbornly don't behave in the same way men flourish when the behavior suits the times and fail when they are out of step.

this, what professor muir was calling his ruthless pragmatism, i think is a core of his attitude toward politics. the sense that success and failure in politics depends on having some mysterious alignment between your will and intention and the times you live in. you don't get to choose, machiavelli is saying. you don't get to choose, and you must never assume you can shake your times more than you think you can. deeply realisting, not even pes missist, this is where you are. don't get ideas above your station. don't think you can master your times. just when you think you have mastered your times, someone will throw you in jail or you'll lose an election or whatever it is. so these are elements in which i'm still enough of a historian

to say this isn't machiavelli's ma dearnty. he was writing for 1513, but when i read it, having been through the experience of politics, i see a deep resonance to aspect of politics which are infuriating and difficult when you do them. you're not the master of fortune, if you think you are, you will fail. luck, being alive with your times is a crucial element of political success and failure. and need throes say, every political rascal who ever live willed blame his times and lack of luck for his own immorality or lack of courage. machiavelli is deeply aware of that particular ruse and exercise of excopassion and god knows, as a politician, i have

done a bit of that. you can't hide from niccolo. that's the great thing about that book. you cannt ide from this cynical, it is cynical, deeply realistic sense of what human beings are like what political action is like. let me move toward a conclusion. other things they pick up from machiavelli that connect to this sense of fortuna, deep sense throughout the book that politics is local. yes, it is true he's writing in dialogue. he's in diagnose with the ancients. he has a strong desire to produce some propositional means about politics that will endure. if you look at the text of the print, it's constantly, you know, this is what they got right. this is borgia got wrong. he could be talking about the

senate otht. it's all local it worked in wyoming, it will not work in oklahoma. it worked in sin then that, it was terrible in florence. that incredibly dense sense of context is an important lesson in itself how to understand politics. machiavelli is saying don't over theorize here. all politics is local. the that digses -- traditions, the meanings that drive and move political action are con tengt yule to cities, con it effect yule to -- another thing so powerful in machiavelli is politic's character. outcomes depend tremendously on what kind of person boar. the fryer was.

the deep sense of driving of character was important. and politics, as i said earlier is timing. the sense in machiavelli that you get everywhere that ideas are interesting, yeah. but a politician has dog in with idea. if has to decide whether an idea has come or gone. whether the moment is right. the sense of the moment, the sense of the decisive moment. why machiavelli is so inextinguishable as a source of political inspiration is the emphasis on the contextual, the local, the moment seizing the moment, losing the moment, being fortune's friends or being on the wrong side of fortune. finally, a final point in our moment in which is conventional in american politics and

canadian politics to lament conflict and lament -- partisanship. machiavelli says calm down, calm down, boys and girls. what do you think this stuff is? this is war by other means. stop fooling yourself. conflict is into theto political life. it's the essence of political life inspect in relation to republican virtue, one of the most surprising and heartingly message you get from the discourse is that one of the things that keeps republic free is the conflict between the elite and the noble and the citizens. it's that conflict that is the source of our freedom. one of the things that comes through so strongly in machiavelli's you have to fight for your freedom. republics can lose it, republics can regain it. the conflict at the heart between the elite, privileged elite and the strts i are is the

driver of republican freedom and the minute you lose the desire to fight for your freedom, you lose it. and that, it seems to me, that vision, in other words that politics is local, it's the politics of the city, it's the politics of personality, the genius in politics are the people who had the mist tier use gift to knowing where fortune is going. and the gift is always it's another key point in machiavelli that gift of knowing where fortunate is going temporary. you have it and lose it. there's no such thing as permanence in genius in politics. what will work in one situation will not work in another. finally, that sense that conflict is integral to political action and integral to the preservation of freedom. these are aspects of machiavelli's message, which seem to me to be of the extraordinarily powerful influence certainly on us all

and our vision of politics. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you both very much. we have time for questions. i've been asked to say you should hold your question untilled you're holding the microphone. question right here. >> hi. the question is for our second speaker. i really appreciate your emphasis on fortuna. i think it's an integral part of the work. but i think that the talk that you have given doesn't compress the central concern machiavelli has with fortune. specific they are fortune is a not because of the event politically it causes theme through prudence and armed with prudence and arms, we can actually stem the tide of those political events. the problem seems to be death

fortune in terms of death and illness when it is we're going die. given that we can't prevent those thing, i think perhaps we're a little bit misguided in saying that machiavelli's picture of politics is one where we might have some hope. in fact both the discourse on "the prince" it seems given that politics is made up of men and men are subject to the, i and fortune. there's no way we can overcome them. the political regime, no matter how well thought out they are are out matily going to die as well. what do you think we can do with our understanding of fortune of event. do you think there's something we can do with with the picture of death based upon your talk with events? >> that's a very powerful reading, and it's very good to put the emphasis on death. it's very present in machiavelli. but i would -- i think you should ask yourself why would

bother write "the prince" and the discourses if he believed what think he believes. that is, i think he wrote the books because he believed that prudence armed with certain kinds of knowledge might be able, in certain cases, to forstall what you rightly the inevitable corruption deny. i didn't talk about that. the key element of the sense of time is the sense of inevitable corruption of virtue. it's an old theme. a way to organize the unking of time is the sense that all republic are threatened with corruption. i come away with a, asian more optimistic reading of machiavelli. god knows it's doifltd find consolation in the icy pages. but a sense that that passage

from chapter 25, you can't stop the river overflowing but you dam the banks. and that, i think, is crucial to his sense of being able to resist corruption, resist decline, the emphasis you use the right word prudence, the use of prudence. he writes these books because he wants to strengthen the arms of prudence. i don't know . >> i think that's right. the person who dies is -- that's the classic example. he does everything right. he follows all the rules an he dies. he loses in that sense. but i think michael is exactly right. you don't write a book that has no utility that has no use for you or others. i think he's really thinking about a very practical set of things you can do short of that before we die, let's see what we

can do. >> i have a question about one chapter which i don't think we talked about yet, which is the last chapter. it struck me as the most wildly utopian chapter in the book. it's possible to do the great deeds all the people i have been praising in the book, moses, cyrus, they are just men, just like you. you can do what they do. and the fact they face really horrible difficult situations, that just let you display and the one word we haven't talked about. you cannot perform the act. maybe we can talk about what it means for him? it seems like it's absolutely crucial to what is going on in the book.

>> well, chapter 26 was probably tacked on later. so it would ended with fortune as a woman passage. it was originally dedicated to julian who chis. bad fortune for him. change the dedication to his other prince lorenzo. apparently that time he adds that chapter and call it is lorenzo to drive out the bar barbarian. it's a classic call to arms for foreign domination. it has a kind of, yeah, optimism about it. but the opposite trout the -- throughout the "the prince," the force you are to deal with it is fortune. fortune is a goddess, so by -- and also gendered fortuna is a

woman. she's a goddess. the opposite is prince that machiavelli, i think, understands as not in the christian sense but in the sense of the attribute of a roman warrior so that certainly fits with the passage we've been talking about in the other chapter 25, about the audacious young man. again, we can understand a variety of it ways of your own understand l your own talent, the capacity to act boldly, courageously, and with some degree of foresight to a degree which you can't. it's the only thing you have got to deal with the capricious fortune. machiavelli is about about twos. everything is about twos. these are the two mechanisms of

history. >> other questions? i have a question, i think, for professor mover. i've been interested because aristotle gives the aim sad vice when he ult callet the a-- thing is in keeping with the though sis. it seems to me, this is really a question that when a political figure ult evaluate appearance they have a reality. it can simply be words. what it be to appear merciful but appear to be merciful in some particular act? i'm not sure if i formulated my question quite sharply enough. i was wondering what you take that notion of the political leader of appearing. does not also not imply a

political real any. >> a way of creating a real fip the way i would think about it and the way i teach is to compare the prince on this set of passages. the contemporary text which deals how the prince should behavior. in which there is articulated codes of behavior. the core of which is this words famous word that he coins. it means nature -- in order to be an effective person in public you have to behave in a certain way. you have to behave according to the accepted social norm of the community. it is the face, -- it would be

looking behind your face. that would be introspective. this is not being introspective. in other words to go back to machiavelli's passage they read you, most people see with their eyes and few with their hands. you don't look behind your own mask to the point that becomes who you are. so that you -- in fact we think about social behavior for a few minutes. we automatic know that -- all know from childhood on we're trained not express our emotions fully and directly all the time. in otherotherwise society would be in cays you. in some sense that's what is going on hire. you have to maintain a certain kind of demeanor in order to be the prince. i think that is -- by the late 16th century, this phenomena becomes so wide spread try treat

a lovely oxy moron on the desimilar nation. how can you appear to be honestly appear to be something you're not? and that's exactly what is going on, it seems to me. [inaudible] first speaker, i don't know your name. you mentioned as -- [inaudible] he praised moas ease for being a founder of his own power and such. except i'm confused by the fact that mo excess of moas ease looks up to had the wrath of god.

-- it's a good question. i wondered if the point was bar issued to say we would have the reaction when we think about moe excess. moases. the man of god. he singles him to be a self-made man. it would be a little way of saying this has nothing to do with higher powers. this is resolutely secular. it's part of this separation of the world of politics and humans from the define world. you had the right response, i think that's what he wants us to say. >> i would add that the other thing about moses he's quoted a lot. moses is all over the place. and he's quoted in the context usually, most commonly in the context as a law giver. ..

discussion of weaponry, and he brings up david and salsa lending of his armor to david. and david stretch run in the armor and it's not the right fit. not the right persona that he should have fixed we has to arm himself and that's what it takes as little stone and that's the right one. he uses that as a metaphor