This extended essay by one of the world\"s leading historians seeks, in its first part, to excavate, and to vindicate, the neo-Roman theory of free citizens and free states as it developed in early-modern Britain. This analysis leads on to a......

Niccolo Machiavelli taught that political leaders must be prepared to do evil that good may come of it, and his name has been a byword ever since for duplicity and immorality. Is his sinister reputation deserved? In answering this question Quentin......