The Prince
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Written in 1513 and first published posthumously in 1532, The Prince is Niccolò Machiavelli’s enduring examination of political power and the art of ruling. Addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici, this concise and provocative treatise considers how rulers acquire, maintain and lose authority, drawing on the turbulent politics of Renaissance Italy and examples from ancient history. Machiavelli challenges the assumption that political success and conventional morality necessarily go hand in hand, asking instead what circumstances demand of those who govern.
At once practical handbook, political reflection and unsettling study of human ambition, the work explores fear, loyalty, deception, military strength and the unpredictable force of fortune. Its unsparing account of power gave rise to the adjective “Machiavellian”, yet its arguments are more complex than the reputation they have acquired. Few books have so profoundly shaped the language of politics: The Prince remains an essential, contested text of the Renaissance and a remarkably immediate meditation on authority.
From the book
“Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.”
— Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
On The Prince
“Machiavelli ... wanted to say something clear and comprehensible about how power is won and lost—in short, to turn politics into a science.”
— Tim Parks, The New York Review of Books