To Machiavelli the ultimate good was a world of dynamic change in which cities or republics were reordering and revitalizing themselves in perpetual motion. The greatest evil was stagnation and complacency. The agents of healthy change were what he called “new princes”—young, ambitious people, part lion, part fox, conscious or unconscious enemies of the established order. Second, Machiavelli analyzed the process by which new princes rose to the heights of power and, often, fell from it. Certain patterns were clear: the need to manage appearances, to play upon people’s belief systems, and
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