This article wants to discover the meaning and the limits of the Italian radical interpretations of Niccolò Machiavelli’s thought. In the latest years, some readings of Machiavelli have spread in certain Italian circle of authors throughout the paradigm of conflict. Marxist and post-Marxist history is the right context to understand these interpretations and catch the sense of the debate within Italian political philosophy. This essay starts by a brief analysis of the most peculiar aspects of this kind of interpretations. Then, (...) it focuses on some significant authors and works. (shrink)

On a dreary spring morning in late October 2006, two policemen drove their cruiser up Nkonjane Road in the K Section of KwaMashu, a former “Africans only” township about fifteen kilometers northwest of Durban. As the cruiser passed over K Section’s softly sloping hills, two men sat handcuffed together in the back. The officers parked the car in front of a house where a woman had reported being raped a few days prior. Leaving the two suspects in the car, the (...) officers alighted and walked up to the home. After greeting the victim, they asked her to step outside to identify the men. The victim, upon seeing the two men seated in the squad car, loudly screamed that they were the rapists... The crowd... (shrink)