The Prince

Plot

Classic, Renaissance-era guide to acquiring and maintaining political power. Today, nearly 500 years after it was written, this calculating prescription for autocratic rule continues to be much read and studied. NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI THE PRINCE TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE BULL The Prince is the Bible of realpolitik. This famous treatise on statecraft holds such power to shock `men of goodwill' that at one time Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was identified with Satan himself. In his own turbulent times, however, Machiavelli was concerned, not with lofty ideals, but with government that would last. He drew on his own experience of office under the Florentine Republic. Here he states uncompromisingly what, in some degree, most governments do but none profess to do, and the tough realities of Machiavelli's Italian are well preserved in the clear, unambiguous English of George Bull's translation.