In writing about Machiavelli, Paul Strathern must contend with centuries of posthumous demonification by critics who have seen The Prince as a recipe for tyranny and evil. (Bertrand Russell, for one, declared it "a handbook for gangsters.") Tyranny, perhaps, but as Strathern points out, Machiavelli's political philosophy "was not evil in itself. It was just extremely realistic." But The Prince is, as philosophical works go, fairly easygoing; it's about the same length as this primer, with a clarity that renders further explication somewhat superfluous. Machiavelli in 90 Minutes, then, is primarily of use if you want a quick-and-dirty biography that puts the writings in the biographical context of Machiavelli's turbulent fortunes in the political intrigues of Renaissance Florence.