Lexington Books The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu: Humanitarian Despotism And The Conditions Of Modern Tyranny (Applications Of Political Theory)

The Dialogue in Hell between Montesquieu and Machiavelli is the source of the worlds most infamous literary forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. John Waggoners superb translation of and commentary on Jolys Dialogue—the first faithful translation in English—seeks not only to update the sordid legacy of the Protocols but to redeem Jolys original work for serious study in its own right, rather than through the lens of antisemitism. Waggoners work vindicates a man who was neither an antisemite nor a supporter of the kind of tyrannical politics the Protocols subsequently served and presents Maurice Joly, once much maligned and too long ignored, as one of the nineteenth centurys foremost political thinkers.