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| The Prince (Penguin Great Ideas) | 
 enlarge | Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
Creator: George Bull
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $10.00
Buy New: $4.34
You Save: $5.66 (57%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $0.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  (5 reviews)
Sales Rank: 105517
Languages: Italian (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7 x 4.4 x 0.3
ISBN: 0143036335
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.101
EAN: 9780143036333
ASIN: 0143036335
Publication Date: September 6, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
A Simple Book, Yet It Holds The Answers To Politics September 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Machiavelli's The Prince is one of the classic books to center the ideas of gaining and holding power in political life and what a "Prince" must do to not only accomplish these tasks, but do them successfully.
This version of the book is a great copy to use and carry around because Penguin has made this short book into a very small compact size, while not compromising text size and even leaving some room to write in the margins.
The book itself is a great book that all students of all disciplines should read, if not for enlightenment in their field, just for the pure gains that a person can take out of this book for life applications. When looking toward politics around the world, many political scientists, politicians, and everyday people alike, use the ideas of Machiavelli and his many simple arguments, knowingly or not. So reading this book will help you not only understand these positions but it will also help you keep yourself in an informed state when debating, voting or just talking all things politics.
Machiavelli wrote such a good work that there are numerous single line quotations which a person can take out of this book, and many of them great and true, but to really understand, beyond a few lines of text, the real meaning, one must read the book cover to cover.
Exceptionally readable April 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Whatever your preconceived notion of this book is, it will be difficult to come away from it without a respect for the author's thoroughness and insight. The common disparagements against Machiavelli are not well supported by the text unless you are willing to nitpick his arguments.
The book is a treatise on how a ruler should gain, manage, and preserve power. He describes the various types of temporal powers a ruler may hold, and he describes the strategies that he thinks are necessary to maintain it for a long time. The book is full of examples from the past and careful analysis of the successes and failures of those rulers. From these examples, he derives his laws of conduct which forms the bulk of the book.
He receives the most criticism for his "ends justify the means" morality. To this point, he gives his critics only limited ammunition, though. The goal of a ruler, he argues, is to maximize the happiness of his subjects. This means peace, stability, freedom, and high standards of living. A ruler cannot provide these things if he is weak or antagonistic towards his subjects. So Machiavelli is arguing for a strong head of state, not a terrible one. All actions should be aimed at increasing the common good, even if sometimes it requires performing seemingly evil deeds. An action that seems immoral at the time (executing a mild troublemaker) may actually be beneficial in the long run (establishing rule of law and stability). The key to being a ruler is to know how to wield power justly, even if the wielding of it seems immoral at times.
For someone of his time, he does not place his trust heavily in God. Instead he seems to hold fast to the platitude that God helps those who help themselves. This is probably what his critics were quickest to glom onto. He presents a new morality based on power and removes God from the equation totally.
Reading the book now in the middle of the 2008 presidential race is perfect timing. Reading Machiavelli's admonishons and exhortations and then comparing them to the actions of the various candidates, you can get a totally different perspective on the maneuverings of each candidate.
This book is a great short read at anytime, but right now is probably the best chance to see how the practical application of Machiavelli's theories works out. An easy 5 stars.
A guide to gaining and maintaining power March 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was written by the famous Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli in 1531. This book is a classic and I was pleasantly surprised that the content was not dated and the principles translate easily into the modern worlds of business and politics.
The author wrote this book as an instruction guide for governing princes in the 1500's when Italy was divided into city states and were being defeated by many foreign powers. I belive that the work is directed to Lorenzo de Medici by a letter included in the work and because at the end of the writing Machiavelli calls for a prince to unite and lead Italy against its oppressors.
The book is not unethical as I had imagined from my understanding of the ruthlessness of Machiavellian ethics. The author is only explaining tactics to use to maintain power in a kingdom or city state that are pragmatic for his time period.
Here are some examples from the book:
1. When conquering a territory keep the current laws and institutions in place, but eliminate all the family of the defeated prince.
2. When trouble is sensed ahead of time it can be easily remedied, if you wait for it to show itself, it is to late.
3. Whoever is responsible for another becoming powerful, ruins himself.
4. There is no surer way of keeping possesion than by devastation.
5. Men do you are harm either because they hate you or they fear you.
6. Violence must be inflicted once and for all, it must be over quickly.
7. Build your power through the people.
8. Power is maintained through religious institutions.
9. Neglect the art of war and you lose your state.
10. If you act virtuously, you will be undone by those who are not, make use of this or not according to need.
The above is just a small sampling of the lessons in this book. My review can not do this book justice, it is full of wisdom and life lessons. It is a guide book for business leaders and politicians. I strongly suggest adding this book to your home library and referring to it often.
Not fun, but good for you.... October 21, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Il Principe is a tiny book--a little over one-hundred pages--that has given its author everlasting fame and notoriety. So much so, in fact, that "Machiavellian,"--like "Orwellian," or "Hobbesian," or "Rabelaisian,"--has entered the adjectival lexicon. (Rarefied company indeed.)
And yet...the book is unbelievably tame. How it ever inspired such a hue and outcry, I can't fathom. Machiavelli writes rather pedantically and systematically about how to rule a principality...a micro-state. (Maybe the translator abetted the fustiness of the prose...something I think highly likely.)
Far from being the tongue of Satan, Machiavelli simply espouses common-sense realpolitik. Sometimes a ruler must lie. Sometimes a ruler must not keep his word. Sometimes a ruler must exercise cruelty. Sometimes it is better to be a miser than a benefactor. Sometimes it is better to be feared than loved. The ruler's life may very well depend on it. In the bloody Italy of Machiavelli's day, that was no great shakes.
Yet Machiavelli is also a bit of a moralist. He writes that an ally should aid another not only because it's the smart thing to do...but because it is the right thing to do. He invokes God repeatedly, and adduces Biblical examples to illustrate his arguments.
Il Principe is not entertaining...it is a propadeutic for statecraft, dry, dispassionate (except for the last chapter), and full of obscure, eye-glazing references to forgotten men. But it is a seminal work of political science, and something that every educated person should dip into.
How to succeed at The Game of Life. March 30, 2006
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
"It must be understood, that a prince . . . cannot observe all of those virtues for which men are reputed good, because it is often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion, in order to preserve the state."
His name has become synonymous with (1) corrupt, totalitarian government, and (2) a person's tendency to deceive and manipulate others for gain. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was a Florentine statesman and political theorist, who believed that theological and moral values have no place in politics. He is best known for THE PRINCE (1513), which he wrote to gain influence with the ruling Medici family. (Machiavelli's model for THE PRINCE may have been Cesare Borgia, a cunning and cruel man.) Machiavelli offers instruction on how to acquire and maintain power in the face of any other consideration: "the end justifies the means;" "it is better to be feared than loved; "it is better to be miserly than generous;" "it is better to be cruel than merciful;" for instance. It goes without saying, modern readers may gain insight from such Machiavellian instruction into succeeding in either politics, corporate culture, or in the self-obsessed, success-by-any-means, get-mine Games of Life. (It should be noted that this review refers to the 2005 Penguin Great Ideas edition of THE PRINCE, translated by George Bull.)
G. Merritt
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