Politique : University of Notre Dame Press : 9780268041137 : 026804113X : 03 May 2005 : In this book Paul Strohm shifts his recognized talent for textual and cultural analysis to the later fifteenth century, arguing that England experienced its own "pre-Machiavellian" moment between 1450 and 1485. These turbulent decades encouraged new pragmatic discussions of political policies of a sort not previously seen and not to be seen again until the middle of the sixteenth century. Strohm contends that England had no need to await the writings of Machiavelli to find its voice in matters of practical statecraft and political calculation. In support of this thesis, he analyzes a range of mainly vernacular fifteenth-century English political texts along with several contemporary writings from Burgundy, France, and Italy. The writers of these texts are unsentimental, shrewdly informed, and keenly concerned with political practice in the world. Intricately connected with this new discussion of wo