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Machiavelli's The Prince: Utopia And Dystopia, Lea Yonago

Young Historians Conference

Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince is regarded as one of the first works of political realism, a text that put power and pragmatism before all else. I speculate that Machiavelli took absolutism as a point of departure because he was attempting to regain Medici favor. However, his commitment to a prince and its corresponding praxis exemplifies the power of utopia. Along the lines of Lezsek Kolakowski, “utopia” here refers to a state of social consciousness that is an inevitable product of developing historical conditions. Without utopias, there could be no social subject which processes and shapes the world. Antonio Gramsci would …