Word: machiavellian
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...view, the talk about the President or any other personage dragging the country into war is the sheerest drivel. The only person on earth who may drag this nation into war is Hitler. . . . His pledged word is not worth a thrip.* He is a fervent believer in the immoral Machiavellian doctrine of the end justifying the means, however vile the end may be. He has repeatedly lied as to his purposes since the deplorable Munich conference and it may confidently be expected that under his wretched domination Germany still regards written treaties as mere scraps of paper...
Finally, there is the aftermath of war. What will happen when we add to the confusion and cynicism of 1918-1939 the increased bitterness of feeling arising out of another involvement? Those destructive and cynical elements found to a considerable extent in Fascism, Nazism, Communism, and full Machiavellian movements are the products of this confusion. Americans are psychologically even more susceptible to these than the European peoples from which we came. This statement may be demonstrated by any serious study...
...people know much about Machiavelli except that he sired the sinister adjective Machiavellian. Even those who know a little more differ widely about him. Some, like Ralph Roeder (The Man of the Renaissance), consider Machiavelli an Italian patriot and his Prince a kind of Mein Kampf of Italy's struggle for unity. Others, like Author Valeriu Marcu, consider Machiavelli a single-track political mind whose curious obsession with the pure mechanics of power is his first-class ticket to genius...
Unfortunately, as David Popper has pointed out, Mann has based his essay entirely on a theory whose truth is yet to be proved. The events he ascribes to Machiavellian tactics may be in truth the product of weakness and indecision. "Human drift and stupidity may attain heights beyond imagination, which observers are constantly tempted to ascribe to some planned motives." Nevertheless, the book is worth while for those who are interested in a variety of different interpretations of the historical role of the Munich settlement...
Since Quincy Howe became editor of Simon & Schuster, that industrious publishing firm has brought out three books expressing respectively suspicion of the motives, amusement at the manners, and rage at the methods, of the massive, muddling, Machiavellian empire of George VI. First was Howe's own England Expects Every American To Do His Duty. Next was Margaret Halsey's good-natured account of her stay in England, With Malice Toward Some. Most recent is Robert Briffault's The Decline and Fall of the British Empire...