Sullivan (political science, Tufts U.) mediates between the contending views that Italian thinker Machiavelli (1469-1527) was a Christian and was a pagan by distinguishing the different cities of Rome that existed during his day. There was the Rome of the Christian era dominated by the pope; the republican Rome of pagan times, which he praises; and an idealized Rome that is neither wholly one nor the other. She finds that he likes the last best. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
She advances the novel proposition that Machiavelli is the enemy of all religion. This is an important new study, cogently argued and beautifully written.
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Vickie Sullivan's book is an important and useful contribution to this literature. It combines meticulous scholarship with provocative and insightful analysis. While issuing directly from this literature, and thus in a sense the intellectual heir of these debates, it attempts to overcome their dualistic character by presenting an alternative and original interpretation. In the process Sullivan provides a novel and intriguing perspective to both the Straussian and civic republican interpretations of Machiavelli.
American Political Science Review
[Sulllivan's] rhetorical stance is one of revaluation, and her rhetorical methodology is one of close, painstaking textual analysis.
The Sixteenth Century Journal
Her incisive and clever analysis, comparable to Victoria Kahn's Machiavellian Rhetoric , deserves a place on a shelf that include Sebastian DeGrazia, Felix Gilbert, Harvey Mansfield, Jr., J.G.A. Pocock, Leo Strauss, and Quentin Skinner. Although clearly intended for a discerning audience of graduate students and faculty, Sullivan's clear prose and powerful insight will captivate upper-division undergraduates and general readers of political philosophy.
Machiavelli's three Romes, according to Vickie B. Sullivan's nicely argued book, are Christian Rome, ancient Rome and his own—a critique and appropriation of the first two.
Times Literary Supplement
Throughout the book, Professor Sullivan's writing style is inviting and accessible. Her treatment of the subject evinces a tremendous knowledge of not only Machiavelli's works, but also of writers who have analyzed and critiqued his ideas. Moreover, her book is well-organized, ensuring that the reader can readily follow her argument. Those with an interest in Machiavelli are likely to enjoy Machiavelli's Three Romes .
[Sulllivan's] rhetorical stance is one of revaluation, and her rhetorical methodology is one of close, painstaking textual analysis.
-- "The Sixteenth Century Journal"Her incisive and clever analysis, comparable to Victoria Kahn's Machiavellian Rhetoric , deserves a place on a shelf that include Sebastian DeGrazia, Felix Gilbert, Harvey Mansfield, Jr., J.G.A. Pocock, Leo Strauss, and Quentin Skinner. Although clearly intended for a discerning audience of graduate students and faculty, Sullivan's clear prose and powerful insight will captivate upper-division undergraduates and general readers of political philosophy.
-- "Choice"Machiavelli's three Romes, according to Vickie B. Sullivan's nicely argued book, are Christian Rome, ancient Rome and his own--a critique and appropriation of the first two.
-- "Times Literary Supplement"She advances the novel proposition that Machiavelli is the enemy of all religion. This is an important new study, cogently argued and beautifully written.
-- "The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science"Throughout the book, Professor Sullivan's writing style is inviting and accessible. Her treatment of the subject evinces a tremendous knowledge of not only Machiavelli's works, but also of writers who have analyzed and critiqued his ideas. Moreover, her book is well-organized, ensuring that the reader can readily follow her argument. Those with an interest in Machiavelli are likely to enjoy Machiavelli's Three Romes .
-- "The NYMAS Review"Vickie Sullivan's book is an important and useful contribution to this literature. It combines meticulous scholarship with provocative and insightful analysis. While issuing directly from this literature, and thus in a sense the intellectual heir of these debates, it attempts to overcome their dualistic character by presenting an alternative and original interpretation. In the process Sullivan provides a novel and intriguing perspective to both the Straussian and civic republican interpretations of Machiavelli.
-- "American Political Science Review"
"Rather than reading Machiavelli's works rhetorically, Sullivan prefers to put her own questions to his texts and too often for comfort derives her own answers.... It is too bad that Sullivan let herself slip into ahistorical modes of analysis because her ingrained tendency to think dialectically, or at least in terms of immanent critique, produces a number of insights."
"While surely original, Sullivan's thesis fails to convince, primarily because she does not adequately establish the idiosyncratic interplay of Christian and pagan elements that is central to her argument.... Throughout, Sullivan attends insufficiently to the literary, personal, and political contexts in which Machiavelli wrote."
Catholic Historical Review
"Sullivan's reading of the texts is isolated from their cultural and linguistic context (even when her argument depends on understanding exactly what particular words might have meant to Machiavelli).... It is also isolated from much of the richest and best modern scholarship on Machiavelli; Sullivan's bibliography is curiously limited to works in English, when in fact most of the serious work on the Discourses is by French and Italian scholars."
American Historical Review
