The Way to Hell: Machiavelli for Catastrophic Times (Rhetoric, Culture, and Social Critique)

An incisive and erudite survey of Machiavelli, the catastrophes of his times and ours, and his counsel for responding to an era of constant crises.

Catastrophe looms. Political, environmental, epidemic, and military crises arrive with increasing frequency. In The Way to Hell, Nathan Crick argues that our perilous times call for the strongest medicine in the Western canon: Machiavelli. Crick reminds contemporary readers about the Florentine master’s advice―that one must learn the road to Hell precisely to avoid taking it.

Like a knowledgeable friend, Crick offers contemporary readers a guide to Machiavelli’s world, work, and warnings. He takes in the sweep of Western history, comparing Machiavelli’s work with ancient sources such as Cicero and Thucydides. And as Machiavelli has never stopped provoking comment, Crick treats readers to a feast of responses to Machiavelli’s work―caustic, learned, and humorous―in the five centuries since he lived.

Including both Machiavelli’s best-known works, The Prince and Discourses on Livy, as well as his personal correspondence and comic plays, Crick asks anew the questions that bedeviled Machiavelli’s beloved Florentine republic: When is force necessary? When are lies justified? Is cruelty defensible? When does social protest slip into violent revolution? What is the correct response to catastrophe?

Like Machiavelli himself, The Way to Hell is witty, stimulating, and challenging. In a world seemingly on the road to Hell, Machiavelli offers an alternative route. His bracing vision exhorts readers to see the dangers in their path and to take action with vigor and determination. Far from a vision of cynicism, Machiavelli offers a beacon of hope for a world that seems on the brink.

Nathan Crick is professor of communication at Texas A&M University. He is author of Democracy and Rhetoric: John Dewey on the Arts of Becoming, Rhetoric and Power: The Drama of Classical Greece, and The Keys of Power: The Rhetoric and Politics of Transcendentalism and is editor of The Rhetoric of Fascism.