The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom by James Burnham (1943). a book about a book about five other books. Burnham picks six political philosophers (Machiavelli, Mosca, Sorel, Pareto, Michels, and himself) who all tried the same thing: study politics like a science. no ideology. no shoulds. just what actually happens when humans organize themselves. what we cover: why every revolution just swaps one elite for another. why the people who claim to hate power usually want it most. why political language never matches political action. and the most uncomfortable line in the book: “masses, you cannot rule yourselves.” our first attempt at “books broception”: a books brothers breakdown of a book that breaks down five other books. if that sounds insane, it is. it’s also one of the cleanest reads on power we’ve done.