Every ruler dreams of being loved by his people, and most discover, sooner or later, that fear is much easier to manage. That was the lesson Niccolò Machiavelli learned in 1513, after his name turned up on the wrong list, found in the pocket of a conspirator he barely knew, and the new government of Florence subjected him six times to an ordeal known as the rope, his wrists bound behind his back and tied to a cord that hoisted him by the arms toward the ceiling, then released him in a sharp drop that wrenched his shoulders out of joint.

From there, he went into exile on a country estate, where by night he began writing a manual of political survival, offered without a shred of shame to the very clan that had tortured and banished him. There is something delicious, and a little uncomfortable for anyone who writes about power while living under it, in the fact that the most lucid portrait of authority ever put on paper came from an unemployed courtier willing to resort to any flattery to get his job back.

If he needed work today, he would probably be writing the most servile column........

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