Review excerpt:

According to Michael A. Ledeen, in Machiavelli on Modern Leadership (St. Martin's, 202 pages, $22.95), Machiavelli would denounce modern leaders--above all Bill Clinton--as too soft. But to Dick Morris, in The New Prince (Renaissance Books, 252 pages, $22.95), Machiavelli would commend soft idealism--a Clintonian variety of it--as just right for our time.

Mr. Mansfield , a professor of government at Harvard University, has translated Machiavelli 's The Prince for the University of Chicago Press. Michael A. Ledeen is a resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at AEI.