Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan

by Richard J. Samuels

Two late-developing nations, Japan and Italy, similarly obsessed with achieving modernity and with joining the ranks of the great powers, have traveled parallel courses with very different national identities. In this audacious book about leadership and historical choices, Richard J. Samuels emphasizes the role of human ingenuity in political change. He draws on interviews and archival research in a fascinating series of paired biographies of political and business leaders from Italy and Japan. Beginning with the founding of modern nation-states after the Meiji Restoration and the Risorgimento, Samuels traces the developmental dynamic in both countries through the failure of early liberalism, the coming of fascism, imperial adventures, defeat in wartime, and reconstruction as American allies. Highlights of Machiavelli's Children include new accounts of the making of postwar Japanese politics―using American money and Manchukuo connections―and of the collapse of Italian political parties in the Clean Hands (Mani Pulite) scandal. The author also tells the more recent stories of Umberto Bossi's regional experiment, the Lega Nord, the different choices made by Italian and Japanese communist party leaders after the collapse of the USSR, and the leadership of Silvio Berlusconi and Ishihara Shintar on the contemporary right in each country.

Genres: Japan, History, Italy

480 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2000

Reviews

[Peter Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, it compares the political development 2 countries that have very contrasting reputations, Italy and Japan!! The comparison works since the similarities between the both politically is striking, even though both countries have reputations that 180 degrees different (Japan has the reputation of Asia's Switzerland, Italy not so).

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Machiavelli’s Children by Richard J. Samuels is a book really enjoyed. It was a comparative analysis of the modern development of the Italian and Japanese states, in which there were more similarities than you might have initially thought. The context in which he compares and contrasts the rise (late 19th century), fall (the devastation of being on the losing side of WWII), and subsequent rebirth was through the visionary leaders of past and present. In fact, I found the later chapters on contemporary politicians and the potential directions of both countries equally fascinating. I still have to admit that I am a little shaky on modern Italian history, but found the comparisons fascinating nonetheless. The fact that both countries were backward agriculturally centered societies that became major world players through authoritarianism and the legacy of the mafia and yakuza in politics and business are fascinating to read about. I think the book was well researched and effectively organized and written in a manner to interest the general reader interested in history.

[Daniel Clausen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in policy leadership. It's also a great book if you need a model for how to do comparative research.

It's also not a bad read just before you go to bed. You'll learn quite a bit about Japanese and Italian history.

[Tobias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my review here.