Last updated: August 31, 2026

Modern Machiavelli is an independent, expert-led publication about Machiavelli, power, political realism, strategy, persuasion, the 48 Laws of Power and manipulation defence.

We have been publishing for more than ten years and today reach more than 300,000 subscribers, followers and community members across our wider network.

Our ambition is larger than publishing another collection of summaries. We are building the definitive modern archive of Machiavellian strategy, historical power tactics and applied strategic thinking.

That requires something the internet occasionally finds inconvenient: standards.

Experience: We go to the Source

We believe that serious analysis improves when writers occasionally leave the laptop.

Our research includes first-hand visits to historically important locations, original photography, interviews, books, primary documents, academic research and direct observation.

Our work on Niccolò Machiavelli has taken us to Sant’Andrea in Percussina in Tuscany, where Machiavelli withdrew after his political fall.

We have researched and written from the historical area around La Fonte del Machiavelli and Il Borgo Machiavelli, on and around the former Machiavelli property associated with his exile and the creation of The Prince.

Standing where Machiavelli stood does not automatically make an interpretation correct. But geography, architecture, distance and historical context can reveal things that the fiftieth recycled internet summary cannot.

First-hand experience complements scholarship. It does not replace it.

Expertise: Written by People who know the Game

Modern Machiavelli is human-led and built by multiple experts with real-world experience in fields including politics, strategy, entrepreneurship, communications and public relations.

Our principal author and editor, Niccolò Nucleo, has more than 20 years of entrepreneurial experience alongside practical experience in politics, political organisation, strategy and media.

He acts as a political analyst, PR Consultant, Strategy Advisor and has appeared in multiple European TV discussion formats. He founded a suborganisation of a political party and spent years observing how influence, reputation, incentives, coalitions and institutional power work outside textbooks.

He also personally knows Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, and conducted an approximately two-hour interview with him in 2025. Beyond interviews and desk research, he regularly travels to historically significant places to uncover the people, settings & power struggles behind the stories we publish firsthand.

Original Research & Analysis

We do not exist simply to explain what Machiavelli, Robert Greene or another thinker wrote.

We analyse their ideas, test them against history and modern cases, identify where they work, examine where they fail and develop our own strategic interpretations.

When we publish our own interviews, field research, photographs, frameworks, case studies or original analysis, ModernMachiavelli.com is the primary source for that work.

Sources, Accuracy & Corrections

For important factual claims, we prefer:

• primary documents and original sources;
• peer-reviewed and academic research;
• serious historical works and biographies;
• official institutions;
• reputable journalism with transparent sourcing.

We distinguish between established fact, evidence-based inference and our own strategic interpretation.

History can be disputed. Psychological research can be conditional. Political motives are rarely accompanied by convenient written confessions.

Where certainty is limited, we say so.

We also update or correct articles when better evidence emerges or older material no longer meets our editorial standards.

Authority does not mean never being wrong. It means being willing to correct what is wrong.

Our AI Policy

Yes, we use artificial intelligence for AI summaries, but our ideas are 100% human.

We use AI as a research and production tool, not as a replacement for expertise or editorial judgement.

It may assist with research organisation, source discovery, transcription, translation, editing, comparison of large amounts of information and technical production.

But AI does not decide what Modern Machiavelli believes or publishes.

Humans determine the argument, evaluate the sources, review the conclusions and remain responsible for the final article.

Our distinction is simple:

AI-assisted research can increase quality. AI slop replaces quality with volume.

We have no interest in mass-producing generic summaries, fabricated expertise or thousands of interchangeable pages simply because a machine makes them cheap.

Human-led. Expert-reviewed. 0% AI slop.

Power, Manipulation & Sensitive Topics

We write about manipulation, persuasion, propaganda, deception, coercion, workplace power and other uncomfortable mechanisms of influence.

Analysis is not endorsement.

Our purpose is power literacy: understanding how power works, how influence is created, how manipulation can be recognised and resisted, and when persuasion becomes coercion.

Pretending these mechanisms do not exist does not make anyone safer from them.

Understanding them might.

The Modern Machiavelli Standard

We want Modern Machiavelli to combine three qualities rarely found together:

the depth of serious scholarship;
the readability of a modern publication;
and the strategic realism that made Machiavelli worth reading in the first place.

We keep the edge.

We add the evidence.

We go to the sources.

We bring real-world experience into the analysis.

And we remain responsible for what we publish.

Power does not require our approval to exist. Our task is to understand its machinery.