The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom

DAY, $2.50

THIS is a work of high quality in its political and philosophical analysis. The author brings to the consideration of the eternal problem of power in society a mind like a surgeon’s scalpel, keen and cutting. Timid readers may be shocked at the blunt, uncompromising formulation of certain aspects of this problem. But Mr. Burnham, one of the very few contemporary thinkers who possess an awareness of the basic trends of the present historical era, is a better friend of liberty than many who praise the word without, the faintest idea of the conditions for its maintenance. The concluding fifty pages are of profound topical interest; the remainder of the book is a pointed, stimulating survey of the ideas of Machiavelli and of such of his modern disciples as Sorel, Pareto, Mosca, and Michels.