Niccolò Machiavelli warns potential revolutionaries to expel the privileged elites of the old regime or risk certain doom. In the Discourses, he applied himself to the enduring problems of popular government, struggling to devise ways government by the people might survive in the modern world and how the transition from monarchy to republic might be managed. Political leaders, activists, and revolutionaries-from Charles V to Antonio Gramsci to Thomas Jefferson-have taken heed of the Discourses.