Book time with Max Benjamin Smith  

Max Smith is the Earl S. Johnson Instructor in Political Science. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and has a BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago.  

Max’s research interests focus on the history of political thought and contemporary democratic theory. Specifically, he is interested in the history of theories of civil conflict, the liberal tradition, early modern political thought, theories of toleration, American political thought, and ancient political thought. His current book project delves into Machiavelli's theory of civil conflict, aiming to provide insights into modern challenges of class conflict and party politics. While Machiavelli’s praise of certain forms of civil conflict has long been noted by scholars, Max’s project shows that it is more central to Machiavelli’s political philosophy and more complex than has been realized. Drawing on innovative interpretations of works including the Discourses on Livy, The Florentine Histories, The Prince, The Art of War, and various personal and professional correspondences, the project offers new resources for thinking about civil conflict for a political world in which neither consensus nor mutual understanding seem achievable. 

Beyond Max’s work on Machiavelli, his research on the conceptualization of civil conflict, and the deployment of theories of conflict by political theorists past and present to overcome, domesticate, or embrace the irascible part of politics deals with matters of central concern to scholars across the social sciences. His work on conflict draws on scholarship in History, empirical subfields in Political Science, Psychology, and other fields in the Social Sciences intersecting with research on topics including race, class, gender, political parties, civil war, and civil violence. His most recent publication, “Their Souls are Marching On: on what Abraham Lincoln and John Brown have in common,” forthcoming in American Political Thought, engages with these questions by uncovering a convergence between Lincoln’s and Brown’s justifications for their use of violence prior to and during the Civil War.