Orti Oricellari
(Putah Creek Branch)
| In 1512, on the banks of the Arno in Renaissance Florence, Niccolo Machiavelli walked in the famed gardens of the Orti Oricellari, discoursing with the young men to whom he later dedicated his Discourses on Livy, saying that they deserved to be princes. |
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| In 2000, on the banks of Putah Creek in Davis, California, a group of professors and students gathered to discuss Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, modestly denying the claims of the political scientists that they deserved to be princes. Thus was born the political theory reading group. | ||
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Our readings have been many and varied across the years,
like a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues
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2000-01Niccolò Machiavelli,Discourses on Livy |
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2001-02
Sir Francis Bacon,
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2002-03Montesquieu,Persian Letters |
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2003-04 Cicero,Speeches, Republic, & Laws
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2004-05Bernard Mandeville,Fable of the Bees&Francis Hutcheson,A Work None Dare Name
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2005-06Montesquieu,The Spirit of the Laws&Fyodor Dostoyevski,The Demons
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2006-07John Milton,Political Writings &Paradise Lost
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2007-08Friedrich
Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil&Benedict Spinoza,Ethics
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2008-09Adam Smith,Theory of Moral Sentiments |
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2009-10
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Our Enemies List includes, but is not limited to:
The IR "Reading" Group
Big Mr. Little Prague
Oprah
Benjamin Barber
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Sinopoli Memorial Lecture