Captains Must Be Good Orators: Machiavelli and the Rhetoric of Command

• In Event: Machiavelli and His Successors

Brief Overview

This paper examines Machiavelli’s response to the classical tradition of rhetoric, uncovering his profound disagreement with that tradition over human psychology, the relationship between speaker and audience, and the possibilities of persuasion.

Author

• Michael Collins Hawley, University of Houston