shadybanana 's review for:

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

4.0

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This was a total badass book. I loved it. The book didnt deviate from its path i.e guidance to a prince. I had heard about this book a lot so I thought I'd give it a shot. I started reading it and i very wuickly realized that this book which is like the ultimate uber help guide for kings/rulers is actually obsolete and has no use today. Perhaps we only read it now for entertainment purposes or if somebody is sinister enough then he might use it to maybe reap some kind of unfair advantage. So the only reason I give it 4-star and not a 5 star is that this book is not lifeless. It is useless today. It is just mere pleasure reading and no real philosophy or extraction. On the contrary though there was a main hidden deep meaning. Machiavelli lists some steps/actions that a Prince must do to keep his subjects happy and enemies feared. The best part about these steps is that they are so creative and out of the box. These steps have infallible logic patronising them and rigid history as a foundation to base arguments upon. You cannot argue with the reasons in the books! There are literally dozens of steps which upon reading the reader might be like "Wait that wont help the prince.." But then Machiavelli would explain it and suddenly you would feel like a fool to not get it in the first go. Quite simply, it shows that how many evidently wrong decisions might actually be right in the long run. This is a very optimistic thought and combined with Machiavelli's logic, it gives a good read. I truly understand the meaning of 'Machiavellian thought' now