“If you can’t make them love you make them fear you.”

Throughout history, some books have transformed the world. They have changed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. One such book is The Prince.

Niccolo Machiavelli was appointed secretary and Second Chancellor to the Florentine Republic in 1498. He was later dismissed from his post in 1512 and forced to withdraw from public life, after which time he concentrated on writing The Prince – a handbook for rulers. It is based upon his first-hand experience as the emissary for the Florentine Republic in the time of Leonardo da Vinci and the Medici family, and he witnessed the brutal reality of the state-building methods of the Borgia family as they took control of Rome and the Papacy.

The Prince analyses the usually violent means by which men seize, retain, and lose political power. His book provides a remarkably uncompromising picture of the true nature of power, no matter in what era or by whom it is exercised.

“A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought... but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.”

This book is unabridged and appears as it was first intended. First published in 1532.

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