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stories's review against another edition
medium-paced
2.5
Really more of a text for academia than literature (or pleasure.
Surprisingly readable, once you adjust to the (?)polemic style of the era.
Nothing particularly revolutionary to the ear today, but that says more about current times than Machiavelli’s insight.
Surprisingly readable, once you adjust to the (?)polemic style of the era.
Nothing particularly revolutionary to the ear today, but that says more about current times than Machiavelli’s insight.
ed_moore's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ was actually a lot more enjoyable than I expected it to be. It is a discussion on what makes a good ruler, with modern and contemporary examples of leaders and why they succeeded and failed, almost serving as a guidebook to ruling a kingdom. It was quite engaging and was also really well translated and easy to follow, though wouldn’t say it was enlightening on a personal level as I can’t see myself ruling a 1500’s Kingdom anytime soon. He does also make ruling seem far more straight forward, following his principles, as I presume it was or was likely to be because of the nature of humans, they cannot be contained into a simple instruction-book list. Aside from that it was an interesting insight into one mans very direct matter-of-fact mind on politics in his time and served well for what it was.
doranwannabee's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
cleothebengal's review against another edition
4.0
Recommend keeping a notebook to keep footnotes and references straight. Brilliant
amandanomaly's review against another edition
4.0
Very informative and interesting. I loved Machiavelli's astute and concise observations, many of which are still relevant today.
butterflyl3's review against another edition
3.0
Most of the content of this book is no longer relevant to the times we live in today. However, it remains thought-provoking because of its cold-blooded, matter-of-fact approach to practical politics, leaving you to wonder how ethics and morality should play in a world where the "right" thing to do is very often detrimental to success.