Declaring his departure from the modes and orders of his predecessors— especially the creators of imaginary republics and principalities (men like Plato, Aristotle and Augustine) — Machiavelli undertakes to show “whoever understands” a new and more promising road to political salvation and personal well-being. So compelling is Machiavelli's rhetoric that we seem to have forgotten just how “realistic” or “moderate” Machiavelli's predecessors we're, and how “unrealistic” or “immoderate” Machiavelli's own teaching is. This essay attempts to bring to light the extremism which underlies Machiavelli's realism and raises doubts about his ability to provide his readers the security he promises.

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The underrepresentation of minorities in higher education evokes a widely shared sense of urgency among educational policymakers. Allan Oster, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, has described the persistent gap between minority and white participation rates as “[o]ne of the most pressing issues facing higher education today” (American Council on Education, 1988b, p. iv). Eliminating the gap and overcoming the other educational inequalities faced by minorities “is not an option, but a necessity; and the need is not eventual, it is immediate” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1990, p. 14). Failure to take timely and decisive action not only threatens the moral and intellectual integrity of higher education as a whole, but our nation's economic well‐being (American Council on Education, 1988b, p. 1). As officials at Smith College so eloquently said, “[i]t is no exaggeration to say that the future of the nation and the future of higher education depend on the ability of the educational establishment to become more inclusive” (Smith College, 1989, preamble).