The Prince Author: Niccolo Machiavelli Colin J.E. Lupton | Language: English | ISBN:
0981224415 | Format: EPUB
The Prince Description
A new edition of the highly exalted and infamous discourse containing observations and instructions on the significance of a rise to power. For nearly half a millennium, its logical and direct analysis of diplomacy, war-craft, and human nature has commanded a wise ruler in all who read it. No collection of political philosophy and history is complete without it.
- Paperback: 108 pages
- Publisher: Prohyptikon Publishing Inc. (August 9, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0981224415
- ISBN-13: 978-0981224411
- Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
This short textbook on how to rule a state is still the playbook for politics.
Looking in my Webster’s, I see the following definition of Machiavellianism:
"the political theory of Machiavelli; especially: the view that politics is amoral and that any means however unscrupulous can justifiably be used in achieving political power"
Until I’d read his book, this was all I knew of Machiavelli. His name is used only as a label for cunning, underhanded pragmatism, for the doctrine that the end justifies the means. It’s a sneer-word that we throw at those who have achieved their aims unfairly.
It’s true that Machiavelli does not sugar-coat his advice; he intended his work to be used by a real prince (he hoped it would be adopted by the Medicis), who would keep the manual in his council-chamber and not merely add it to the other volumes of his publicly visible library. It uses the plain, unvarnished language of the trusted cabinet adviser speaking in private, off the record. Statecraft is the most pragmatic of businesses; and this is a pragmatic book.
The core of Machiavelli’s message is this: if you wish to rule, then you must base your actions on the way people really are, and not on the way you wish they were. If you want to bring out the best in people, provide them with a secure, prosperous, well-governed state. It just so happens that to do this, the prince is obliged to engage in behavior that, in polite society, is condemned as immoral. He will need to dissemble, to deceive, to break faith, and to take preventive action against his enemies. If he fails to do these things properly, then he will soon be replaced by someone who does not so fail.
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