Cover of The Prince

The Prince

El príncipe

Niccolò Machiavelli

#082In the Top 100
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Call number
PH · BS-140
Language
English
Physical copies
1
Publisher
Penguin USA
Published
1961
Verification
Verified

What it is about

Written after Niccolò Machiavelli’s removal from Florentine political life, The Prince analyzes how rulers acquire, stabilize, and lose states. Through Roman history and contemporary Italian examples, it examines force, law, reputation, counsel, popular support, cruelty, military capacity, virtù, and fortuna. Its unsettling power comes from treating political survival as a practical field whose requirements may conflict with conventional private morality. I need this book close whenever I start thinking the question has become simple.

Why I keep it

The Prince. I keep it to recognise princes.

Key ideas

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