Machiavellian Legacy: Essays in Italian Political Thought (1998)

What do classical elitists like Pareto and Mosca have in common with Marxists like Labriola and Gramsci? In this collection of essays, Joseph Femia argues that all four thinkers are united by the 'worldly humanism' they inherited from Machiavelli. Their distinctively Italian hostility to the metaphysical abstractions of natural law and Christian theology accounted for similarities in their thought that are obscured by the familiar terminology of 'left' and 'right'. The collection includes critical essays on each of the four thinkers, as well as an introductory chapter on their links with Machiavelli.