&ldquo;We do not publish our own drafts, that is, our own mistakes, but we do sometimes publish other people's,&rdquo; Louis Althusser once observed of Marx's early writings. Among his own posthumously released drafts, one, at least, is incontestably neither mistake nor out-take: the text of his lecture course on Machiavelli, originally delivered at the École Normale Supérieure in 1972, intermittently revised up to the mid-1980s, and carefully prepared for publication after his death in 1990.<br /><br />Though only appearing as an occasional reference in the Marxist philosopher's oeuvre, Machiavelli was an unseen constant presence. For together with Spinoza and Marx, Machiavelli was a veritable Althusserian passion. <em>Machiavelli and Us</em> reveals why, and will be welcomed for the light it sheds on the richly complex thought of its author.