The Dignity of Man: History and Politics

Humanists' interest in the study of language and documents led them to consider history not as an explanation of God's master plan but as a record of what human beings had achieved.

For instance, a Florentine educated in the humanist tradition, Niccolo Machiavelli, wrote a history of the Roman Republic; he later used material from this history to write a book in which he advised a hypothetical Prince on how best to rule (based on what he had learned from history, rather than from the Bible). Other humanist historians wrote histories of their own countries and/or books on how best to organize a society and to govern. Such works include Jean Bodin's The Republic and Thomas More's Utopia.