a classic, but not a particularly good one; probably great at the time but very much a historical text - i found it to be quite dull and probably a somewhat inferior text to other analyses of politics since. however, as a groundbreaking text, i suppose it holds much credit simply in pioneering many of its ideas, and on the meta-level i found the way machiavelli constructs the 'virtus' as the synthesis between moral and practical achievement to be interesting.