Description

Published in 1532, The Prince is a shockingly frank guide to the art of cultivating power. How does one establish power and maintain control over other people—or an entire nation? How does a prince relate to his citizens? Machiavelli's brilliant and cold-blooded vision reflects on all of the necessary aspects of leadership. His advice always cuts to the chase, stating that if a prince must choose between being loved or feared, it is better to be feared. No ingredient in the recipe for absolute power is left out, whether it concerns military control or day-to-day princely behavior. Machiavelli's work has remained a classic political treatise for centuries. Its honest and realistic insight has stayed fresh and eye-opening to this day.

About the Author

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was the ultimate Renaissance man. Born in Florence, Italy, he came from a well-established family. The young Machiavelli was given a top-notch education, and he rose to success as a young man, serving as an ambassador. Machiavelli's era was filled with strife, and he witnessed internal battles for power between church and state and large-scale turmoil between Italian forces and foreign invaders. The young man's keen mind served him well as he took notes on the nature of power and control as well as the dramatic successes and failures of various leaders and nations. When the Medici family seized power in Italy, Machiavelli, as someone who had worked against them, was imprisoned and tortured. He escaped into seclusion at his family estate, and there he began to write The Prince, his treatise on leadership, and Discourses on Livy, a work on the history of Rome. The Prince lives on today as one of the most frank and cold-blooded works on the nature of power in all of political philosophy.

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All states, all powers, that have held and hold rule over men have been and are either republics or principalities.
Principalities are either hereditary, in which the family has been long established; or they are new.
The new are either entirely new, as was Milan to Francesco Sforza, or they are, ...