Machiavelli's The Prince, part 8: a lingering love of justice.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

The Prince is in fashion today. Business gurus write books on "Machiavelli for managers". Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff, wrote a thinly disguised memoir under the title The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World . Granta Books last year published a collection of essays on gardening by famous authors entitled, bizarrely, Machiavelli's Lawn .

The cynic will point out that this is simply the way of the publishing world. We won't read A la recherche du temps perdu today but we will pick up a copy of How Proust Can Change Your Life or How Xenophon Can Improve Your Waterskiing or some such masterpiece. There is something in this. …