|
Machiavelli's Rules of War
[WarOnTheRocks] Niccolo Machiavelli is best known for The Prince, his guidebook on ruling an Italian city-state. But for a long time after his death, Machiavelli’s Art of War was better known and more influential (alongside his Discourses on Livy, both of which were written after The Prince but published before).Machiavelli’s Art of War takes the form of Socratic dialogue between the warrior Lord Fabrizio Colonna and Florentine nobles. Fabrizio was a real person, but his character in this book has been interpreted as a stand-in for Machiavelli himself. In Art of War, the dialogue explains and predicts changes in European warfare and military affairs as a consequence of larger social, economic, and technological evolutions. The text is wide-ranging. At the end of the dialogue, in Book Seven, Machiavelli’s Fabrizio offers 27 "general rules" of war, which are listed here: 1. What benefits the enemy, harms you; and what benefits you, harm the enemy. Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 2016-12-28 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=476890 |