Written in 1513, and first published in 1532, ‘The Prince’ is a political treatise and the best-known work of Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher, who is acclaimed as the father of modern political philosophy and political science, and historian who lived during the Renaissance.‘The Prince’ is the most controversial book about winning authority and holding on to it. It stays as lively and shocking today as when it was written. Machiavelli's tough-minded, pragmatic argument that sometimes it is necessary to abandon ethics to succeed made his name infamous. Yet his book has been read by strategists, politicians, and business people ever since as the ultimate guide to realpolitik. Originally criticized as a collection of wicked maxims and a hint of tyranny, it has more recently been defended as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced.