Botero: The Reason of State

Giovanni Botero, Robert Bireley

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781107141827
• eBook ISBN: 9781108515474
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Niccolò Machiavelli's seminal work, The Prince, argued that a ruler could not govern morally and be successful. Giovanni Botero disputed this argument and proposed a system for the maintenance and expansion of a state that remained moral in character. Founding an anti-Machiavellian tradition that aimed to refute Machiavelli in practice, Botero is an important figure in early modern political thought, though he remains relatively unknown. His most notable work, Della ragion di Stato, first popularised the term 'reason of state' and made a significant contribution to a major political debate of the time - the perennial issue of the relationship between politics and morality - and the book became a political 'bestseller' in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth century. This translation of the 1589 volume introduces Botero to a wider Anglophone readership and extends this influential text to a modern audience of students and scholars of political thought.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Further Reading
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Dedication
• Book One
• Book Two
• Book Three
• Book Four
• Book Five
• Book Six
• Book Seven
• Book Eight
• Book Nine
• Book Ten
• Appendix A Of the Means to Calm Troubles Once they have Arisen
• Appendix B In the Accumulation of Wealth One Ought Not to Continue ad Infinitum
• Appendix C Against Whom the Prince Ought to Deploy his Military Forces
• Appendix D Of Reputation
• Index