Machiavelli's The Prince

As is the case with many periods in human history, the people of the early modern period in Europe often fantasized about an “ideal society.” They spoke often of places like Cockaigne and Utopia, where life was virtually perfect and far easier, particularly for the poorer, lower class portions of the population. It is of utmost importance to note what, exactly, made such places so perfect in the minds of these people because these details are quite revealing and useful to modern historians in gaining a better understanding of several different aspects that characterized this period. In fact, one may argue that the beliefs and ideas as to what makes up an idealized society reveal the perceived problems of the real world in Europe. Perhaps the

Of course, The Prince is written like an outline on how to succeed, or fail, as a prince and Machiavelli appears to believe his ideas are correct and worthy of attempt by rulers. However, Machiavelli is an outlier in this particular set of authors because the others do not provide a means of achieving their idealized societies, writing as if they long for these places where their burdens do not exist without instruction on how go about making it reality. The texts from Dreaming of Cockaigne seem to be at least somewhat aware that such a place is unachievable because various aspects are impossible due to their nature as they would require birds, trees, human life, and other aspects of nature to undergo drastic fundamental changes. Rousseau’s writing is very critical of society, even in his own fictional version and he gives only small indications that some aspect could, realistically be changed but does not provide even an idea as to how bring about such changes. Thomas More’s Utopia, which is similar in many ways to Cockaigne, also appears to be little more than a desirable scenario and lacks any direction or instruction on how to create Utopia in the real world. Some of Francis Bacon’s ideas were certainly achievable, because some of the inventions he marvels over were already in existence at the time he wrote New Atlantis. He does adamantly insist that the real world could someday begin looking more like Salomon’s House, but, like most of the others, does not provide many details on how to make such