The Prince

by Niccolò Machiavelli

The Prince

book data

5742 ratings, 3.61 average rating, 416 reviews (more data...)

edit

published

September 1st 1998 (first published 2002) by University Of Chicago Press

binding

Paperback, 184 pages

isbn

0226500446 (isbn13: 9780226500447)

description

When Lorenzo de' Medici seized control of the Florentine Republic in 1512, he summarily fired the Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria and...more

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | compare prices…

Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.

new topic
discuss this book

topics	replies	views	last activity
chicago readers: Dessert Island 5?	12	22	09/17/2007 06:34AM

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 7744)

All ratings | 5 stars (1195) | 4 stars (1909) | 3 stars (1976) | 2 stars (525) | 1 star (130) | avg 3.61

all | this edition

Sara

Sara rated it:

(review of isbn 0553212788)

09/10/07

Read in September, 2007

For my "Renaissance War and Peace" class. Interesting philosophy I suppose. But if it enlightened me more on anything, it was why I hate politicians in the first place.

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

2 comments

Deellen

Deellen rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

10/01/08

2 comments

Jennifer (JC-S)

Jennifer (JC-S) rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

06/06/08

bookshelves: owned

Read in January, 1971

A young colleague of mine recently said ‘management is easy’. I smiled enigmatically and considered buying him a copy of ‘The Prince’ but I fear it would be wasted. I am now on my third copy of this book which, alas, I can only read in English. The George Bull translation (as reprinted in 1995) is the version I currently refer to.
I first read this book when studying economic history at high school in the second half of the last century. I was intrigued by Machiavelli’s advice even...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Eric

Eric rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

08/15/07

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in May, 2000

recommends it for: ANYONE!

I will go out on a limb to say that second only to the major religious works (the Bible, the Koran, etc.), Nicolo Macchiavellie's "The Prince" is the most important and influential work that has ever been put into print. Composed by the Florentine in the 16th Century, "The Prince" provides the blueprint not just for the Renaissance ruler for whom it was allegedly penned, but also for anyone in politics, warfare, or even contemporary business. Machiavelli's premises may seem...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Tyler

Tyler rated it:

(review of isbn 0140449159)

05/18/08

bookshelves: short-reads

Read in May, 2006

The book contains a chronicle of some of the conflicts of the Renaissance, so it is good history.

I read it because of its connection with the current political philosophy of neoconservativism, especially in regard to Leo Strauss.

As a philosophy, or as a "how-to" kit for beating your enemies and pulling the wool over people's eyes, this importunate appeal has been superseded by treachery far beyond anything the author could ever have imagined.

People enthralled by Machiavel...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Peter

Peter rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

04/22/08

Read in August, 2007

I don't understand when people analyze the historical and contemporary issues of this book after just their first reading. Did they not really enjoy this book?
Perhaps there is just a little tyrant inside of me wanting to get out, but during each discourse whether on cruelty and mercy or holding a newly captured province, I imagined myself as that Prince and wondered what I should do to increase my power.

(Yes, I know the book was probably meant for Medici family members.)

If you ignor...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Gwen

Gwen is currently reading it (review of isbn )

07/07/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

An interview I saw of Salman Rushdie on "Charlie Rose" renewed my commitment to read this work. I have 5 different editions including Cliff Notes, and am loving the deeper acquaintance of the Renaissance in Florence and its environs.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

2 comments

Suzanne

Suzanne rated it:

(review of isbn 1404314792)

06/18/07

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: anyone with an interest in philosophy, politics, war, controversial literature

If you're curious to know how Nicolo Machiavelli's surname became a prejorative term for darkness and evil, this book will walk you through his philosophy on what it takes for a leader to be successful.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Karen

Karen rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

11/24/08

Read in January, 2006

Owing to the fact that I don't know much about Italian history, especially the political history, I fear that I missed a great deal that I might otherwise have gotten from this book. The footnotes were really not that helpful and would take quite a bit of background reading to really understand why Machiavelli wrote this and what effect it may have had. But in the more abstract sense of how a prince should behave, I found some very intriguing ideas. Although this was written in a later time per...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Galen

Galen rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

04/10/08

Let us be cruel and full of parsimony! Shall be utilizing this text next week when I take over the world....

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Ginnie

Ginnie rated it:

(review of isbn 0226500438)

09/20/08

bookshelves: government, law, philosophy-ethics, treasure

"..Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed, they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood...more "..Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed, they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince, who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or by nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails...."

Sure, we say, that's Machiavelli. A tough, unprincipled 16th century Dick Cheney. But is he? Is this all?

The Prince, Machiavelli’s how-to guide for sovereigns, turned out to be a scandal that Western political thought and practice has been gazing at in horror and in fascination since its first publication. Circulated in manuscript for years, the book was not published until 1532—nearly five years after Machiavelli’s death—and received its first significant critique within the decade, from an English cardinal who pronounced the author “an enemy of the human race.” Machiavelli stood accused of having inspired Henry VIII to defy papal authority and seize ecclesiastical power for the crown. Some thirty years later, in France, the book was blamed for inciting Queen Catherine de’ Medici to order the massacre of two thousand rebel Protestants. (There seems to have been little besides her family connection to warrant the Machiavellian association.) His notoriety grew, less through knowledge of the offending book than through the many lurid and often skewed attacks it prompted, with titles on the order of “Stratagems of Satan.” Wherever a sovereign usurped power from the church or the nobility, whenever ostentatious deceit or murderous force was used, Machiavelli was spied in the shadows, scribbling at his desk amid the olive groves, his quill dipped in a poison so potent that it threatened the power structures of Europe.

Certainly, Machiavelli contributed to a large number of important discourses in Western thought—political theory most notably, but also history and historiography, Italian literature, the principles of warfare, and diplomacy. But Machiavelli never seems to have considered himself a philosopher—indeed, he often overtly rejected philosophical inquiry as beside the point—nor do his credentials suggest that he fits comfortably into standard models of academic philosophy. His writings are maddeningly and notoriously unsystematic, inconsistent and sometimes self-contradictory. He tends to appeal to experience and example in the place of rigorous logical analysis. Yet succeeding thinkers who more easily qualify as philosophers of the first rank did (and do) feel compelled to engage with his ideas, either to dispute them or to incorporate his insights into their own teachings. Machiavelli may have grazed at the fringes of philosophy, but the impact of his musings has been widespread and lasting.

The Prince offered the first major secular shock to the Christianized state in which we still live. Long before Darwin, Machiavelli showed us a credible world without Heaven or Hell, a world of “is” rather than “should be,” in which men were coolly viewed as related to beasts and earthly government was the only hope of bettering our natural plight.The terms “Machiavellian” or “Machiavellism” find regular purchase among philosophers concerned with a range of ethical, political, and psychological phenomena, even if Machiavelli did not invent “Machiavellism” and may not even have been a “Machiavellian” in the sense often ascribed to him. Moreover, in Machiavelli's critique of “grand” philosophical schemes, we find a challenge to the enterprise of philosophy that commands attention and demands consideration and response. Thus, Machiavelli deserves a place at the table in any comprehensive survey of philosophy.

Yet we continue to flounder in the break between politics and ethics that Machiavelli made impossible to ignore: private life and public life; personal morality and Realpolitik. We insist that our leaders convince us that they are exemplary and (increasingly) God-fearing human beings, who are nevertheless able to protect us from enemies not so constrained. How is this to be done? Do we really want to know?

Most important, as we emerge from the century that gave Utopia a bad name—in which Hitler and Stalin and other genocidal princes believed they were building superior worlds, in which the means was annihilation and the end an illusion—we are still arguing bitterly over the question of whether the end justifies the means. Are there any acts that one’s sense of honor (or conscience, or ability to sleep at night) forbid one to commit—as an individual, as a nation—no matter what the promised end? Machiavelli did not question the use of torture for political purposes, even after he had been its victim. “When the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken,” he wrote in the Discourses, “no considerations of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, not of glory or of infamy, should be allowed to prevail.” This has doubtless been the tacit position of many governments throughout history; it is openly the position of a large segment of our government now, with Vice-President Cheney warning of the need for going to “the dark side” in dealing with terrorist suspects, and Attorney General Mukasey undecided about which methods of “enhanced” interrogation constitute torture. Private morality may be presumed to prevail again when the country is strong and secure, although Machiavelli, unlike those who offer such consolation, admitted that the nature of mankind makes it unlikely that there ever will be such a time. “I love my country more than my own soul,” Machiavelli wrote, yet a full assessment of his work makes that decision far from clear. Then, as now, it is a terrible choice....less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Josh

Josh rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

09/15/08

Read in October, 2002

I feel a little silly adding books like this to my "read" list, because I never would've read it, were it not for a philosophy class. It was just sitting there in my "recent updates" from one of my randoms (sorry Synchro23, not to belittle our relationship, but we've just never actually met or communicated). I'm giving it 4 stars because I don't remember it, but it's like, ya know, wicked famous and stuff. So I'm sure it was just fine. I read this DJ Jazzy Gendre's class....more

Like this review? yes

2 comments

Albert

Albert rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

09/09/08

Read in August, 2008

recommends it for: political theorists and students of history

It is hilarious to me that most people are inclined to posit and adhere to the concept, which I consider base and uninformed, that somehow Niccolo Machiavelli is the embodiment, the personification of evil and ruthless manipulative leadership. Niccolo paints the picture of a world in which Princes, or leaders of state, in order to protect their own interests, their countries, and their legacies must develop the ability to make cognitive and pragmatic decisions irrespective of the Law of Nature....more It is hilarious to me that most people are inclined to posit and adhere to the concept, which I consider base and uninformed, that somehow Niccolo Machiavelli is the embodiment, the personification of evil and ruthless manipulative leadership. Niccolo paints the picture of a world in which Princes, or leaders of state, in order to protect their own interests, their countries, and their legacies must develop the ability to make cognitive and pragmatic decisions irrespective of the Law of Nature. He comes to this conclusion on the basis of his 16 years in public office as a consulate to the government of Florence. In speaking of a Prince's necessary deceptions, Niccolo writes of Pope Alexander VI "There was never a man who made promises more persuasively or swore to them more solemnly and kept so few of them as he. Yet his tricks always brought the results he desired, for he knew this side of the world well". In order to a Prince to be successful tenure and develop a long lasting dynasty, it would be necessary for him to lay aside moral implications and simply act in the best interest of his people and of his estate. Is this the insidious ramblings of a cold hearted old man that was cast out to the countryside after enjoying years of prominence at the side of world leaders or is the depiction that Machiavelli so bluntly unveils simply Truth. It may be deplorable and incalculably contrived and evil, but that makes it no less true. In fact, if we were honest, we would realize that indeed it is true. Even in modern politics, shades of this can be seen, does anyone actually trust any politician no matter how much he smiles and tell you everything is going to be okay? Inherently, even today, we know this to be veracity, it is simply the state of the world in which we live, and in politics in specific (but not exclusively). Machiavelli was never a Prince, he simply knew the arena in which a Prince must live and articulated it with such transparency that it shocks readers even 500 years later. Niccolo was incredibly honest, not especially evil. He did not make the make the rules of the game Princes play, he simply was brave enough to articulate them....less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Cari

Cari rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

09/30/08

bookshelves: book-club

Read in September, 2008

When choosing the number of stars for this book, I was wishing for an "it was interesting" score, but decided to go with 3-star "I liked it". Perhaps a bit daring, given this book's reputation, but I was surprised to find myself intrigued by many of Machiavelli's blunt comments. Sure, all the shocking statements were there, such as "...men must be either won over or destroyed" or "...those who are injured cannot hurt you, because, as I said, they are scattere...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Elizabeth

Elizabeth rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

07/25/08

bookshelves: classics, non-fiction

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: people interested in learning about the world around them

I told my mom I had started reading this very interesting book called The Prince. "Oh, by Machiavelli!" She said. I was surprised she knew it. Then I told my sister that I had started this really good, non-fiction book called The Prince."
"You mean the one by Machiavelli?" She asked. So, apparently this is a book I should have known about even before I started reading it! But I didn't. I just found it and picked it up and read the back and it sounded fascinating! It's o...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Danny

Danny rated it:

(review of isbn 0743487680)

07/10/08

Read in July, 2008

I was very pleasantly surprised how easy it was to read this book, considering it was written over 500 years ago. I thought it would be wordy and use archaic terminology, neither of which is true.

Machiavelli wrote this as a book of advice for rulers (in particular for the ruling member of the Medici family), so the average joe will be outside his target audience. None the less, it's still really interesting to read as it is his personal observation of historical figures and his contempora...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Nick

Nick rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

05/15/08

Read in January, 1999

I'd heard of Machiavelli - synonymous with underhanded deals and backstabbing - but didn't realise how much impact this book would have on me.

Written as a kind of "Don't kill me, I can be useful" tribute to the returning Medici rulers in Florence at the start of the 16th century, Niccolo sets up a trawl through histories great and gruntled leaders. Discussing torture, fear, as well as popularity and gambling, Machiavelli tells us everything he knows about leadership.

What amaze...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Beilijakungs

Beilijakungs rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

04/28/08

Read in December, 2007

Instead of just hearing people use the term 'Machiavellian' and being satisfied with that as your understanding of him, why not just take five or six hours and read his book? It's full of ideas that are revolutionary because they are practical. He is not all what people in general suppose him to be. He does not espouse the idea of wantonly killing anyone in your way, or trying to be a horrible person. He instead tells people to do what it takes. Don't be cruel when you don't have to be. (Mo...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Jensen

Jensen rated it:

(review of isbn 0937832383)

04/27/08

Read in April, 2008

"The Prince" is a famous Rennaissance text that addresses the nature of human power and pursuit. It discusses successful tactics to be used by newly appointed rulers or by people who wish to be rulers. Though the book was certainly revolutionary for its time, as many of the ideas Machiavelli were new and bold when the book was written, it seems slightly redundant in today's context. Some of the ideas he presents seem ordinary and obvious, as the times are very different from when the b...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Tim

Tim rated it:

(review of isbn 0300064039)

04/23/08

Read in April, 2008

This rating reflects the Yale University Press edition with a translation by Angelo M. Codevilla. Hopefully the man has another job. Machiavelli welcomes in the age of political realism, tossing aside idealism and moral virtue as goals for the ruler. It is an important and discussion inducing book - though less so in the Yale edition. Blessing the reader with an inordinate number of semi-colons and impossibly long and convoluted sentences, (he also does not translate Machiavelli's Latin - mo...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 387 388 next »

recent status updates | recommend it | blog it

combine
other editions (227)

More editions...

groups with this book