The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu: Humanitarian Despotism and the Conditions of Modern Tyranny

John Waggoner’s superb translation of and commentary on Joly’s Dialogue - the first faithful translation in English - seeks not only to update the sordid legacy of the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion but to redeem Joly’s original work for serious study in its own right, rather than through the lens of antisemitism. Waggoner’s work vindicates a man who was neither an antisemite nor a supporter of the kind of tyrannical politics the Protocols subsequently served, and presents Maurice Joly, once much maligned and too long ignored, as one of the nineteenth century’s foremost political thinkers.