Contents -- Foreword -- Author's Preface to the English Edition -- Chapter One Introductory Comments -- 1.1. Althusser, Machiavelli and political theory -- 1.2. Althusser's contribution to Machiavelli scholarship -- 1.2.1. The general and the particular -- 1.2.2. The political praxis of a prince -- 1.2.3. Aleatory dynamics -- 1.2.4. 'Verità effettuale della cosa' - 'The effective truth' -- 1.2.5. Morals and politics -- 1.2.6. Materialist political theory -- 1.3. The approach of the present study -- Chapter Two A Critique of Hegelianism -- 2.1. A critique of Hegelian dialectics -- 2.2. Althusser's Marxism -- 2.2.1. Overdetermination and underdetermination -- The 'morphology' of the over- and underdetermination of contradictions -- The reality of contradictions -- Displacements and condensations in ideological apparatuses - ideological apparatuses as the displacements and condensations of contradictions -- The metaphoric nature of the topographic -- Russia 1917 -- 2.2.2. Summary: complexity and chaos -- 2.2.3. Engels and individual will -- The individual will -- 2.3. Althusser's self-criticism -- 2.3.1. Elliott's theoreticist interpretation of Althusser -- 2.4. The 'Machiavellian' Lenin -- 2.4.1. Towards a theoreticisation of practice -- Chapter Three AleatoryMaterialism -- 3.1. Prologue: Machiavelli's solitude -- 3.2. The underground current of the materialism of the encounter -- 3.2.1. Law -- 3.2.2. Surprises -- Chapter Four Althusser's AleatoryMachiavelli -- 4.1. A preliminary schema: the two dimensions of Machiavelli's differentiae specificae -- 4.1.1. 'Theoretical' differentia specifica -- 4.1.2. 'Political' differentia specifica -- 4.2. Machiavelli's differentia specifica in the history of political thought -- 4.2.1. Machiavelli - Montesquieu - Aristotle -- 4.3. The praxis of The Prince: the text as a political act.

4.3.1. Machiavelli's utopianism -- 4.4. The praxis of the prince: the aleatory truth -- 4.4.1. The aleatory of the 'subjective' and 'objective' -- Theman of action and his case -- 4.4.2. Beyond the aleatory of the 'subjective' and 'objective' -- 4.5. The praxis of the prince: the project and strategy of the new prince -- 4.5.1. Machiavelli and Polybius -- 4.5.2. The conditions for the political project and strategy of the new prince -- 4.5.3. The lawless hero -- 4.5.4. A popular ideological figure -- The instinct of the fox -- Displacements and condensations -- 4.5.5. The dialectic of the interests of the prince and the people -- 4.5.6. The state and the law -- 4.6. Epilogue: Althusser's interpretation of Machiavelli -- Chapter Five The Subversive Machiavelli -- 5.1. The art of war and the art of politics -- 5.2. The destructive current of fortuna -- 5.2.1. The actor's prudence -- 5.3. The aspects of fortuna -- 5.3.1. Kronos and Kairos -- 5.4. Lady Fortuna and the youngmen -- 5.5. The rise and fall of Cesare Borgia -- 5.5.1. Cesare's misfortune -- 5.6. 'A stable people' -- 5.6.1. 'A people' and a 'nation' in the context and terminology of the early cinquecento -- 5.6.2. Machiavelli in the Florentine context -- Class position and ambitions -- 5.6.3. 'Utopian' texts -- Nazione andMachiavelli -- 5.7. Epilogue: Machiavelli and the taming of chance -- Chapter Six Conclusion -- References -- Index.