The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory. By Diego A. von Vacano. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. 230p. $60.00 cloth, $29.95, paper.

This book is admirable for its large ambitions. Diego A. von Vacano seeks to imitate Machiavelli's own imitation of great men, designed to launch the imitator above and beyond the object of his imitation. His proximate goal is indeed identical to the one he attributes to both Machiavelli and Nietzsche: “to break the Manichean mold of morality in their respective cultures” (p. 7; cf. pp. 182–83). To do so in his own culture, he aims “to construct an aesthetic political theory that can have … applicability” beyond the thinkers (again, Machiavelli and Nietzsche) from whom it is purportedly derived (p. 5).