The Political Realism of the Egyptian Elite

A Comparison between The Teaching For Merikare and Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il Principe

Bibliographic Data

ID12955802
AuthorsChristian Langer (0000-0002-0447-4671, Freie Universität Berlin, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume8
Issue1
Pages49-79
Publication date2015-08-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Egyptian History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1874-1657 • E-ISSN: 1874-1665
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/18741665-12340020
OpenAlexW761096999
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited43

A comparison between The Teaching for Merikare and Niccolò Machiavelli ’s Il Principe produces some astonishing results. While Machiavelli ’s treatise is generally thought to be representative of the dawn of modern Western political realism, its essential properties are already present in Merikare . This includes the firm belief in strong authority, the fallibility of man, the need to appease the masses, and, if necessary, the demand to repress any developing threat to the power of the elite. In terms of the history of political thought Merikare is placed between the works of the moral realism of Greek philosophers like Plato and the political realism of Thucydides and Machiavelli . With the latter being heavily influenced by ancient authors, questions regarding the genesis of Greek political thought can be asked. It may well be that Greek political thought was, at least indirectly, influenced by Egyptian political thought

Art · Elite · Epistemology · Literature · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Realism · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub