You are very well read. I know nothing more of Machiavelli, but the term itself. You inspire me to at least search out his name, for a crash outline of his musings. Solzhenitsyn is such a hero for us. And of course the much loved C.S. Lewis. Thank you.
Machiavelli is largely misunderstood but his writing is still relevant to politics and power today. Both Hitler and Stalin had his book by their bedside. Most politicians who want power do.
Machiavelli was a “history nut”. He was extremely well read and understood how to get and keep power like no one since. His genius was not so much in promoting evil to get power-—which his name implies—but it was his observation of all people who were successful-—how they accomplished it and why people failed in getting power or keeping it.
I took a class on him and read some of his writings. In his Discourses on Livy—he thought the best form of government was a Republic. He also stated that if a person wanted to keep power, they had to have a military—and that military had to be “Virtuous” ,otherwise, the military wouldn’t be loyal to the leader and could usurp power or be sloppy and ineffective.
This speech is one of my favorite on Solzhenitsyn. He was so wise, also. He was shelved by the leftists, because he saw through them and voiced it.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html