Reviews - The Prince | The StoryGraph

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After several on and off again attempts at reading this I have finally completed it. With the rise of fear being reintroduced in modern politics it is surprising that this book has not made a resurgence, though fear inflicted haphazardly seems to be an idea this book is throughly against so perhaps that explains it. I don’t think Machiavelli ever pondered rule by tweet.

For all that is discussed of this book I expected it to be more negative in its treatment of power but found this to be much more positive. The key word that I felt was missing was respect, seek respect as you balance between being feared and being loved. How useful this book is is up in air. It very much is a product of its time as it discusses the warring states of Italy but, reading through all that is said about armies and fortresses, there are some interesting ideas on the nature of power and how to retain it.

It’s not the most useful book in the world but given how short it is, it’s worth a read if you want to examine how power is gained and maintained.

declann's review against another edition

4.0

informative reflective slow-paced

A very interesting read, more balanced than I expected from its reputation (although I'm sure Mein Kampf is also not just about genocide). Some genuinely intriguing concepts that would be interesting to translate into a 21st Century western democracy.

Yet, quite a terrible translation actually, not just archaic at times but sometimes grammatically incorrect which broke the flow of the argument. Also it heavily relies on contemporary Italian examples from its sixteenth century context which sometimes became a little difficult to follow with all the names it expected me to know