Machiavelli’s political priorities distort his military theory

Evidence

One may say that the essentially political conception is so dominant in Machiavelli that it makes him commit errors in the military field. He gives most thought to the infantry, who can be recruited en masse through political action, and as a result he misjudges the significance of artillery. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 640

Categorization

• XREF: Minor but illustrates Gramsci’s point that a thinker’s categories are shaped by their political commitments — a methodological lesson for reading later texts critically.

Related

• Machiavelli must be read as historically situated, not as a timeless political scientist (similarity 0.83)
• Machiavelli wrote to give political education to those not born into ruling traditions (similarity 0.82)
• Gramsci reads Machiavelli as legitimizing political leaders who defy reigning ideology (similarity 0.81)
• Machiavelli’s political theory centers on securing permanent consent through the art of governing. (similarity 0.79)
• Machiavelli’s work is political action, not utopian blueprint or abstract science. (similarity 0.79)
• Machiavelli wrote as an agitator urging action, not as a systematic theorist (similarity 0.79)
• Politics must be established as an autonomous science within any coherent worldview (similarity 0.79)