Niccolo Machiavelli

The Florentine diplomat whose name became an insult, unfairly. He wrote two books that look opposed and are not. The Prince describes how power is taken and kept, with a cold eye and no comfort. The Discourses on Livy is the work of a committed republican who believed liberty was worth the conflict it brought. Read together, they are one mind looking hard at how states actually work, refusing to pretend otherwise. The refusal to pretend is the lasting lesson.