Dr. Alexander Lee is a research fellow at the University of Warwick. A specialist in the history of the Italian Renaissance, he completed his first two degrees at Trinity College, University of Cambridge – where he was a senior scholar and winner of the Earl of Derby Prize for Outstanding Performance in the Tripos Examinations, the James Webb Prize for the History of Ideas, and the Bowen Prize for History – before undertaking his doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh. He has previously held posts at the University of Oxford, the Université du Luxembourg and the Università degli studi di Bergamo, and has also taught at the universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Lyon 2.
His latest book, MACHIAVELLI: HIS LIFE AND TIMES was published by Macmillan in March 2020. This is a definitive and highly original portrait of one of history’s most unjustly maligned characters that casts its subject not as the sinister genius he is commonly thought to be, but as an infinitely sympathetic figure prone to political missteps, professional failures, and wickedly amusing personal dramas.
Alexander’s book HUMANISM AND EMPIRE was published by Oxford University Press in May 2018. This ground-breaking study offers a striking challenge to existing interpretations of early Renaissance political thought, and brings to light the hidden harmonies between the ‘republicanism’ of the Italian communes and the imperial ideal in the thought of fourteenth-humanists.
His book THE UGLY RENAISSANCE (London: Hutchinson, 2013; New York: Doubleday, 2014) – a Times Literary Supplement “Book of the Year 2013” – is a fast-paced and counter-intuitive portrait of the seedy social world behind the art of the Renaissance that challenges fondly-held preconceptions of the period as an age of rarefied culture and beauty.
Alexander is also the author of Petrarch and St. Augustine: Classical Scholarship, Christian Theology, and the Origins of the Renaissance in Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2012), the editor of Renaissance? Perceptions of Continuity and Discontinuity, c.1300-c.1550 (Leiden: Brill, 2010) and Libertés et citoyenneté urbaines du moyen âge à nos jours (Trier and Luxembourg: CLUDEM, 2015), and the co-author of The End of Politics: Triangulation, Realignment and the Battle for the Centre Ground (London: Politico’s, 2006).
Passionate about bringing high-quality history to a wide audience, he writes a regular column for History Today, and has contributed pieces on a variety of topics to the New Statesman, the Sunday Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Atlantic, the Times Literary Supplement, and Dissent.
REVIEWS
MACHIAVELLI: HIS LIFE AND TIMES
"[T]he definitive book on Machiavelli" - Christopher Hart, Sunday Times
"A wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography...A monumental achievement." - Jessie Childs, author of God's Traitors
"[A]n utterly absorbing month-by-month, often day-by-day account of Machiavelli's life and career, contextualised through a near-epic history of Florence's involvement in the Italian Wars" - John Guy, Literary Review
"Alexander Lee's exhaustive, immensely readable life of Machiavelli sets a wholly new standard for English-language biographies of the Florentine thinker" - Tony Barber, Financial Times
"A superb work of scholarship, securely grounded in the turbulent Italy of Machiavelli's day, and unflinchingly truthful." - Ferdinand Mount, Prospect
"[A] weighty and impressively detailed biography" - Michael Prodger, The Times
"[A] life of Machiavelli that must surely be definitive in its faithfulness to the man and his experience of his time." - John Gray, New Statesman
"A fine new biography" - Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph
"[I]n this rich new biography from Renaissance historian Alexander Lee, [Machiavelli's] life and times are presented in their complex, contradictory fullness" - Joanne Paul, BBC History Magazine
HUMANISM AND EMPIRE: THE IMPERIAL IDEAL IN FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ITALY
“A quite brilliant book, sure to engender admiration and debate for years to come.” – Prof. Christopher S. Celenza (Georgetown University)
“[A] much-needed major contribution to the scholarship of Italian politics.” – Prof. Carrie Beneš (New College of Florida), American Historical Review
“This is a book that all scholars of learned culture and politics in late medieval and even early modern Europe will need to read.” – Prof. Brian Maxson (East Tennessee State University), English Historical Review
“This book transforms forever the approach scholars must take to the study of late medieval and early modern political thought” – Prof. Cary J. Nederman (Texas A&M University)
“[P]articularly original and significant” – Prof. Lorenzo Tanzini (Università degli studi di Cagliari), Archivio storico italiano
THE UGLY RENAISSANCE
Times Literary Supplement ‘BOOK OF THE YEAR 2013’
‘Alexander Lee’s fascinating new book…explore[s] the dualities of creative brilliance and human baseness with a mastery of sources and a popular touch that vividly brings the whole period to life.’- Spectator
‘[E]ffortlessly combining scholarly depth with a highly accessible style and presenting many of the best-known (as well as some of the least known) figures and artworks from the Renaissance in an unexpected and multifaceted light…Lee has given us a Renaissance that is…uglier, but infinitely more interesting.’ – New Humanist
‘[A] highly successful…highly readable account of the relationship between high art and “sex, scandal and suffering” that arguably characterised Italian society.”- BBC History Magazine
His latest book, MACHIAVELLI: HIS LIFE AND TIMES was published by Macmillan in March 2020. This is a definitive and highly original portrait of one of history’s most unjustly maligned characters that casts its subject not as the sinister genius he is commonly thought to be, but as an infinitely sympathetic figure prone to political missteps, professional failures, and wickedly amusing personal dramas.
Alexander’s book HUMANISM AND EMPIRE was published by Oxford University Press in May 2018. This ground-breaking study offers a striking challenge to existing interpretations of early Renaissance political thought, and brings to light the hidden harmonies between the ‘republicanism’ of the Italian communes and the imperial ideal in the thought of fourteenth-humanists.
His book THE UGLY RENAISSANCE (London: Hutchinson, 2013; New York: Doubleday, 2014) – a Times Literary Supplement “Book of the Year 2013” – is a fast-paced and counter-intuitive portrait of the seedy social world behind the art of the Renaissance that challenges fondly-held preconceptions of the period as an age of rarefied culture and beauty.
Alexander is also the author of Petrarch and St. Augustine: Classical Scholarship, Christian Theology, and the Origins of the Renaissance in Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2012), the editor of Renaissance? Perceptions of Continuity and Discontinuity, c.1300-c.1550 (Leiden: Brill, 2010) and Libertés et citoyenneté urbaines du moyen âge à nos jours (Trier and Luxembourg: CLUDEM, 2015), and the co-author of The End of Politics: Triangulation, Realignment and the Battle for the Centre Ground (London: Politico’s, 2006).
Passionate about bringing high-quality history to a wide audience, he writes a regular column for History Today, and has contributed pieces on a variety of topics to the New Statesman, the Sunday Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Atlantic, the Times Literary Supplement, and Dissent.
REVIEWS
MACHIAVELLI: HIS LIFE AND TIMES
"[T]he definitive book on Machiavelli" - Christopher Hart, Sunday Times
"A wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography...A monumental achievement." - Jessie Childs, author of God's Traitors
"[A]n utterly absorbing month-by-month, often day-by-day account of Machiavelli's life and career, contextualised through a near-epic history of Florence's involvement in the Italian Wars" - John Guy, Literary Review
"Alexander Lee's exhaustive, immensely readable life of Machiavelli sets a wholly new standard for English-language biographies of the Florentine thinker" - Tony Barber, Financial Times
"A superb work of scholarship, securely grounded in the turbulent Italy of Machiavelli's day, and unflinchingly truthful." - Ferdinand Mount, Prospect
"[A] weighty and impressively detailed biography" - Michael Prodger, The Times
"[A] life of Machiavelli that must surely be definitive in its faithfulness to the man and his experience of his time." - John Gray, New Statesman
"A fine new biography" - Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph
"[I]n this rich new biography from Renaissance historian Alexander Lee, [Machiavelli's] life and times are presented in their complex, contradictory fullness" - Joanne Paul, BBC History Magazine
HUMANISM AND EMPIRE: THE IMPERIAL IDEAL IN FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ITALY
“A quite brilliant book, sure to engender admiration and debate for years to come.” – Prof. Christopher S. Celenza (Georgetown University)
“[A] much-needed major contribution to the scholarship of Italian politics.” – Prof. Carrie Beneš (New College of Florida), American Historical Review
“This is a book that all scholars of learned culture and politics in late medieval and even early modern Europe will need to read.” – Prof. Brian Maxson (East Tennessee State University), English Historical Review
“This book transforms forever the approach scholars must take to the study of late medieval and early modern political thought” – Prof. Cary J. Nederman (Texas A&M University)
“[P]articularly original and significant” – Prof. Lorenzo Tanzini (Università degli studi di Cagliari), Archivio storico italiano
THE UGLY RENAISSANCE
Times Literary Supplement ‘BOOK OF THE YEAR 2013’
‘Alexander Lee’s fascinating new book…explore[s] the dualities of creative brilliance and human baseness with a mastery of sources and a popular touch that vividly brings the whole period to life.’- Spectator
‘[E]ffortlessly combining scholarly depth with a highly accessible style and presenting many of the best-known (as well as some of the least known) figures and artworks from the Renaissance in an unexpected and multifaceted light…Lee has given us a Renaissance that is…uglier, but infinitely more interesting.’ – New Humanist
‘[A] highly successful…highly readable account of the relationship between high art and “sex, scandal and suffering” that arguably characterised Italian society.”- BBC History Magazine
