estranger0 's review for:

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

4.0

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The essential handbook to capturing and manipulating power is a lot more historical and practical than you thought. Machiavelli’s infamous The Prince is a political treatise on how to keep and expand your power as a prince, who to keep close, who to keep far, how to appear and how to be, the book acts as a sort of manual on how to manipulate crowds into your favor and to switch facades faster you then you can say - “but isn’t this book unethical?” And to be honest, yes, it is, but if you’re like me and read it because it’s a classic, theres a lot of valuable information not for princes or royalty that is useful in day-to-day living for such people like you and I. Usually every one of Machiavelli’s commentaries can be interpreted into a more general and feasible everyday context. It’s whatever you want it to be, and interpretational is always my preferred style, so this book I found to be particularly interesting and enjoyable.

Notwithstanding its ethical concerns, such as how Machiavelli on multiple occasions lists how vile and self-serving man is and how a constant attainment of anything can only be successful under very precise and difficult conditions is one of the many things that were not-so-corrupt from the Prince. Real, true, and somehow an oracle of the past, present, and future cycles of war, politics, tyranny, and psychology.