REVIEW ESSAY
Gateway to Statesmanship: Selections from Xenophon to Churchill. Edited and with an Introduction by John A. Burtka IV (Regnery 2024)
Few statements from the Federalist Papers exhibit greater poignancy or consensus at this moment than James Madison’s caution: “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” Nearly every sphere of contemporary life—politics, education, business—faces a dearth of noble and effective leaders. Recentpresidential elections feature some of the country’s least popular candidates in history and Congress enjoys less public trust than our criminal justice system or big business. Partisans, populists, patriots, revolutionaries, and conservatives share little in common, but none dispute that we live amidst a (political)leadership crisis.
Though scholars disagree on the causes of this crisis, for John A. Burtka IV, editor of Gateway to Statesmanship: Selections from Xenophon to Churchill (Regnery Gateway, 2024), the present situation should not surprise us: “most individuals in leadership positions in most countries for most of time have been quite mediocre or even terrible.” Great leaders, those who combine virtue, fate, and “exceptional talent” arerare, like meteors—dazzling lights that elicit awe and devotion before the rest of us return to the humdrum of normal politics.
But unlike meteors, Burtka argues, we need not sit and wait for the next to appear. The fate of greatness is in our hands. Gateway introduces and includes excerpts from prominent works in the “mirror-for-princes” tradition—a collection of texts spanning “peoples of all cultures, creeds, and political systems,” that aims to cultivate great leaders. The authors of these texts influenced statesmen such as “Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Justinian the Great, and Elizabeth I” and provide aspiring leaders “time-test principles” for implementation.Amidst the despair that characterizes so many reflections on leadership, Burtka’s is a message of hope: noble leadership is the product of education and free choice. It also is a message of ambition. “Imagine that the sharpest minds and most accomplished statesmen would carry your book around in their pockets, seeking to implement its precepts in their own lives to found nations, defend peoples, and lead world religions.” By curating some of the best texts in the history of political thought, Burtka’s book aspires to fulfill this lofty goal.
Following a 50-page introduction, Gateway to Statesmanship includes twenty excerpts divided into four eras: ancient (7 texts), medieval (6), renaissance (3), and modernity (4).
Some texts—like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Machiavelli’s Prince, and George Washington’s “Farewell Address”—are well known, while others—Han Fei’s Difficulties of Persuasion or Agapetus the Deacon’s Advice to the Emperor Justinian—are likely unfamiliar to many. The temporal and philosophical span of the book is ambitious indeed. In over 250 pages, readers encounter a dazzling array of civilizations, philosophers, and leaders.
The principles and lessons proffered also span a wide gamut. Among other lessons, Xenophon and Machiavelli advise princes to study history and to imitate the actions of “illustrious men.” Cicero, Eusebius, and Christine de Pizan emphasize the importance of mercy. Han Fei and al-Farabi count persuasion among the essential characteristics of the ideal leader.
There are common themes. For example, Agapetus the Deacon and Winston Churchill each compare statesmanship to piloting a ship. As Churchill puts it: “a statesman in contact with the moving current of events and anxious to keep the ship on an even keel…[to] lean all his weight now on one side and now on the other.” Consequently, the statesman’s arguments and actions may seem “contradictory in spirit and opposite in direction: yet his object will throughout have remained the same.” True statesman are not afraid of such apparent inconsistency for they tack to the needs of the moment in pursuit of their “dominating purpose” in piloting the ship to a worthy destination.
Burtka’s inclusion of Churchill’s essay captures the great promise of cultivating statesmanship by introducing students to historical figures and the mirror for princes tradition. Churchill’s analysis of the temptation to appear consistent reveals both a perennial ethical dilemma and an essential lesson of real-world statesmanship: we must be nimble and prudent to achieve the good amidst changing circumstances. No analytical theory or handbook of maxims can resolve this quandary. Instead, leaders must rely on practical wisdom and certain guiding principles to discern how best to act. The study of great texts and exemplars will not reveal simple answers either, but it may alert us to questions worth investigating and the principles by which they may be addressed. Churchill provides one such principle:
“A Statesman should always try to do what he believes is best in the long view for his country, and he should not be dissuaded from so acting by having to divorce himself from a great body of doctrine to which he formerly sincerely adhered.”
Consistency has its place, but must serve greater purposes. This is one lesson among many that Gateway to Statesmanship proposes to students.
Though Burtka distills these lessons into his own “12 Laws of Leadership,” the greatest contribution of this book is to expose students to a litany of fundamental questions and tensions that must be addressed by citizens and statesmen alike. Unlike so many leadership pundits and scholars, Burtka elevates the hard-earned wisdom and nuanced reflections of a great tradition of conversation that spans civilizations. This is a noble endeavor indeed.
But a truly noble endeavor must also be sensitive to its limits. For there is great promise in statesmanship (and its study), but there is also great peril. For every Pericles there are many Alcibiades. Burtka recognizes this tension—“counseling princes can be a dangerous enterprise”—but it is unclear how his book works to restrain such dangers. For example, the individuals proposed as exemplars of princely education—Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Justinian the Great, Elizabeth I, and Cyrus—are a precarious bunch. Though accomplished in great deeds, these figures pose great risks topolitical stability, regime integrity, and the common good. Alexander and Cyrus won empires that immediately fell into disarray upon their deaths. Caesar flaunted Rome’s republican regime and established himself permanent dictator. Elizabeth I brought stability to England, but it required the execution and persecution of Catholic opposition. These examples illustrate the great drama and restraint that education unto statesmanship requires.
Perhaps even more important than equipping leaders with principles is the much more difficult task of convincing them to be devoted to principles at all. This task is essential because complete devotion is often suspect to certain versions of statesmanship. Churchill once pleased Stalin by remarking, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” These same men are supposedly distinguishable by their principles, but if Churchill is correct then even the statesman’s commitment to truth cannot be complete. If principles are what guide statesmen, why do so many, even some of the “greats,” end up questioning principles nonetheless? To state the matter differently: must we agree with Machiavelli that “it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity”?
It is a great merit of Gateway to Statesmanship that it includes this quote and many others at the heart of the statesman’s endeavor.