Excellence Unleashed: Machiavelli's Critique of Xenophon and the Moral Foundation of Politics - Tapa dura

Excellence Unleashed is a fine comparison of Machiavelli and his favorite classical author Xenophon that is long overdue. Rasmussen accompanies his careful analysis with useful strictures and shrewd insights. -- Harvey C. Mansfield, Harvard University Excellence Unleashed is an analysis at once compact and penetrating of Machiavelli's critique of Xenophon. . . . Ramussen's book is undoubtedly a valuable addition to the literature on Machiavelli and Xenophon. His prose is remarkably clear and his analyses are forceful, convincing and well grounded in the texts he considers. * Polis-Journal Of The Society For Greek Political Thought * When it comes to the qualities characteristic of contemporary academic writing, lucidity is in the underrepresented minority. Rasmussen's prose exemplifies this virtue as it explores two authors who delight us even as they quicken our thoughts. His crisp formulations make familiar points seem new, and he then goes beyond them by establishing such new connections as the relationship between Machiavelli's critique of Xenophon and his critique of Christianity. This tour de force is accurately described by its own title. -- Wayne Ambler, director of the Herbst Program of Humanities at the University of Colorado at Boulder

This book is a detailed comparison of the major political writings of Machiavelli and Xenophon. By elucidating the remarkable scope, depth, and subtlety of the debate between these two great thinkers,Excellence Unleashed offers a fresh perspective on the philosophic and political significance of Machiavelli's proto-modern break from the classical tradition.