BBC Book Review
"Erica Benner convincingly argues [that] there was a great deal more to Machiavelli.… She interweaves his own words with those of his contemporaries, as well as setting him in the context of his world. The result is a rich, vivid, and endlessly surprising portrayal of the man and his times."
The New Yorker
"In this tightly composed narrative of Machiavelli’s life and works, Benner argues that The Prince is a work of secret subversion, using irony and beguilement to advance a staunchly republican message.… A gripping portrait of a brilliant political thinker, who understood the dangers of authoritarianism and looked for ways to curb them even though independent speech had become impossible."
Foreign Policy
"Benner’s eminently readable book serves as an introduction to Machiavelli and offers plenty of fresh insight even for those sure they know him and his work. Like Machiavelli’s own writings, Benner’s is a meditation on the virtues and flaws of various forms of government and ambitious men who will rule at will unless checked by institutions."
Steven B. Smith
"Is there anything more to say about Machiavelli’s Prince after more than five hundred years? Well, yes. Erica Benner beautifully embeds Machiavelli’s most famous book within the Florentine politics of his time. More than any other book known to me, this one genuinely illuminates the humanity of Machiavelli."
General Sir Rupert Smith
"In our world of new princes and divided societies, with confrontations in constant danger of escalating to conflict, Be Like the Fox reads like a cautionary call from the past. Anyone seeking to understand power, force, and government today would do well to read this book."
Literary Review (UK) - Catherine Fletcher
"Engaging, entertaining, splendidly colourful. . . . Brings to life a Machiavelli who's a man of considerable political principle. Benner does a wonderful job of bringing to life Florentine society – the world of the piazzas, the courts, the battlefields. . . . A creative, very readable book with more than a little contemporary resonance."
New York Times Book Review - Edmund Fawcett
"Erudite and engaging. . . .Be Like the Fox is not detached, archival history but a remarkable work of imaginative engagement backed by scholarly learning. Benner brings Machiavelli alive by weaving his words and those of his contemporaries into the narrative as a playwright might. . . . Be Like the Fox can be read with pleasure by anyone interested in the craft of politics and the life of ideas."
Guardian - Terry Eagleton Terry Eagleton
"Lively, compulsively readable, unshowily erudite."
Avi Shlaim
"Fascinating, remarkable. . . . Erica Benner illuminates not only the life of Machiavelli but the complex and cruel political world in which he operated."
Financial Times - Julian Baggini
"Unconventional. . . Benner argues that in [his] turbulent, violent world, Machiavelli’s most consistent advice favoured principle, restraint and respect for the rule of law, even in The Prince. . . . Compelling."
Clifford Orwin
"No other writer about Machiavelli approaches the liveliness of Erica Benner. In Be Like the Fox she boldly confronts the most daunting obstacle to interpreting him: that being himself so foxy he rarely means quite what he writes. Drawing on his life and all his varied writings and inter-weaving these with the turbulent life of Florence in his day, she retrieves a Machiavelli who is not the promoter of crookedness but its critic, a friend of democracy and honest government whose heart is with the underdog."
Rosamund Bartlett
"Erica Benner succeeds brilliantly in overturning centuries-old received views of a seminal but misunderstood writer and thinker. Her enthralling and moving evocation of Machiavelli’s turbulent career, set in the milieu in which he lived, also reveals how much he is our contemporary."
Open Letters Monthly
"Excellent.… [Benner is] a fantastic reader of Machiavelli’s very varied literary output. She’s as well-versed in this author’s writing style and writing mind as readers could ask of any biographer."
Samuel Bowles
"In Erica Benner’s Be Like the Fox, Machiavelli—in his own words the ‘historian, the comic writer, the tragic author’—comes alive as the master of irony deployed in the service of justice, civic morality and the rule of law. This delightful and convincing account should be the final nail in the coffin of the derogatory term ‘Machiavellian.’"
The Telegraph (UK) - Tim Smith-Laing
"A ripping read. . . . fascinating, charming, enjoyably unorthodox."
Telegraph
"A ripping read.… fascinating, charming, enjoyably unorthodox."
Nadia Urbinati
"Erica Benner’s compelling book testifies to the eternal return of Machiavelli’s puzzle: whether he was the voice of Satan, or the author who wanted to put morality on firmer human foundations by unveiling the empty moral platitudes that politicians used to shroud their foxy and ruthless behavior. Like a riveting novel, Benner’s book guides us through Machiavelli’s times and shows the variety of masks he put on, suggesting that the man behind them was less likely to compromise than his words might lead us to believe."
Guardian - Terry Eagleton
"Lively, compulsively readable, unshowily erudite."
Kirkus Reviews
2017-02-20
A new look at an old book—and the philosopher/diplomat who wrote it.Everyone in school learned Machiavelli's (1469-1527) famous advice, set forth in The Prince, to those in power: the ends justify the means. Benner follows up on her previous Machiavelli's Prince: A New Reading (2014), which argued for an entirely new way of interpreting the book, with this timely, dramatic, and comprehensive life of the Florentine, drawing on his poems, plays, letters, diplomatic dispatches, and his many friendships. This is a very personal biography. Benner invites us right into Machiavelli's world, his thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, quoting him extensively on a wide variety of topics. The author begins with a helpful, four-page dramatis personae, and she tells Machiavelli's story in lively, almost novelistic prose. A person says something "coldly," while another speaks "quietly." Some readers may be put off by this methodology—too much creative writing and less historical scholarship—but Benner knows her subject well, and she wants us to know him well, too. The well-educated Machiavelli worked in the government, then as a diplomat, and later as the leader of the Florentine militia. Life at this time in Florence was strewn with political and religious land mines. A wrong step on the toes of a certain prince, Medici family member, or cleric could get you thrown into prison, as Machiavelli was in 1513, for conspiracy against the Medici. He denied it and was tortured for nearly two weeks by having both shoulders dislocated. After he was freed, he wrote his famous treatise, published after his death. Benner posits a reading that has been put forth before but never in such detail: that Machiavelli's "true intention in The Prince was to expose the perversities of princely rule." In support of that argument, she provides an eye-opening, captivating portrait. Benner succeeds at what every biographer tries to do: she brings her subject to life for her readers.
