The Prince and The Discourses [Paperback]

Niccolo Machiavelli (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0075535777 | ISBN-13: 978-0075535775 | Publication Date: August 1, 1950 | Edition: 1

Translated by Luigi Ricci, Revised by E.R.P. Vincent, Introduction by Max Lerner

Product Details

• Paperback: 540 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 1 edition (August 1, 1950)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0075535777
• ISBN-13: 978-0075535775
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential tome on gaining and wielding political power., June 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Prince and The Discourses (Paperback)

"The authentic interpreter of Machiavelli," wrote Lord Acton, "is the whole of later history." Thus, Bill Clinton to his peril, ignored Machiavelli's advice: "Men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared." Nearly 500 years ago, Machiavelli set out to teach the lessons of power. And his teachings remain as valid in our day as in his own. Want to size up a ruler's competence? Then "look at the men he has about him." Want help in making hard decisions? Consult your advisors, deliberate privately, and then stick to your decision. It was Machiavelli who first described the fundamental law of public relations: "Everybody sees what you apear to be, few feel what you are." Even those who want nothing to do with executive authority will profit greatly by learning the truth about how such power is actually gained and used. Above all, Machiavelli urges those who must deal with the real world to remain clear-eyed about its dangers: It is necessary for a prince, he warns, to "learn how not to be good," and to sometimes use this knowledge in effective defense against ruthless enemies. This is admittedly strong stuff for many idealistic readers. But those who reject Machiavelli's advice do so either in ignorance of the ways power is actually used, or in a well-intentioned but doomed attempt to create a Utopia populated not by men but angels.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Father of Modern Political Philosophy, February 14, 2006

By 

Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prince and The Discourses (Paperback)

Niccolo Machiavelli, (1469-1527), writes the greatest treatise on keeping a republic vibrant by comparing Rome to republican Venice. Machiavelli has gained an unwarranted notorious reputation for his "evil" treatise on political thinking and acting through his authorship of "The Prince". "The Prince" received more notoriety than his politically erudite work "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy" in which Machiavelli espouses his belief that the Roman Republic was the best and most virtuous form of government to emulate. His breadth and understanding of Roman history is remarkable. Machiavelli's love of his country Florence, and the proud political work as a minor government administrator and ambassador Machiavelli performed during its years as a republic show through in this work. It was on his many ambassadorial trips to the French, Papal, and Italian courts that he learned to observe political leaders and their governmental institutions which formed the basis of his political theories in his many writings. My favorite quote from Machiavelli is; "It's better to act and repent then not to act and regret".

Modern philosophers starting with Machiavelli reject the classical view of politics as undemocratic and elitist. Only wealthy men of leisure would have time to develop the virtues and character necessary to rule. Machiavelli believed that man by nature was selfish and driven by ambition. Machiavelli is not interested in character formation and moral appeal but in building the right kind of institutions to govern society. Laws and justice would protect men from power hungry rulers. Modern philosophy is an out growth of the revolution that takes place in the natural sciences during the Enlightenment. The purpose of science is the conquest of nature man is in control of human life. Philosophers from Machiavelli on become sectarian. "Everything good is due to man's labor rather than to nature's gift."

As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found this to be an indispensable book to continue one's journey into political philosophy and history of Europe.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's not enough to read "The Prince" to say you know what he wrote, January 6, 2010

By 

Leon Baradat "Homebrewer" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prince and The Discourses (Paperback)

Many people have never read anything by Machiavelli except The Prince, and they assume that's all they need to know about what he wrote. But The Prince is the equivalent of Marx's Communist Manifesto--Machiavelli's real political treatise is The Discourses, just as Marx's was Das Kapital.

You have to understand that The Prince was a piece he wrote in an effort to get a job with a particular prince. And while the Prince is much more pithy and quotable than the Discourses, it's in the Discourses that you'll find where his real sympathies lay. Here are some quotes from the Discourses:

"Now in a well-ordered republic it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures" (ch. XXXIV, p. 203 in this edition)

"...there can be no worse example in a republic than to make a law and not to observe it" (ch. XLV, p. 229)

"...if we compare the faults of a people with those of princes, we shall find the people vastly superior in all that is good and glorious." (ch. LVIII, p. 264)

The Discourses talks all about politics and governing, and it makes you want to go out and rule a country! Very cool. At times he betrays an attitude that's almost modern, and maybe that's part of why he was vilified in his day. At other times he sounds strangely archaic, but that's hardly surprising for a fifteenth-century Italian.

That said, this translation of the Prince is very mediocre, and for that I give it four stars instead of five. It talks a lot about calumnies, for instance, which is unsettling if you don't happen to know what a calumny is before picking up the book. And it uses "contemn" as a verb, which is also archaic (we still use the noun--contempt--but not the verb!).

More seriously, it makes the common mistake of translating the Italian word "vertu" as English "virtue". It's partly because of that sort of translation error that Machiavelli has a bad reputation in the English-speaking world. While "vertu" can mean virtue, it also has other meanings that have nothing necessarily to do with virtue, including strength, force of character, etc. So this translation, in a particularly egregious passage, talks about Hannibal's "inhuman cruelty...together with his infinite other virtues" (ch. XVII, p. 62)--which gives an English speaker a jaw-dropping "WTF?" moment.

That said, it's not a BAD translation of the Prince, just a middling one (the translation of the Discourses seems pretty good), and this volume is worth picking up to see what Machiavelli had to say about politics and government. This was a guy who understood politics better than most people then or now, and who loved watching and studying the operation of government--almost like an engineer appreciates the functioning of machinery. He wanted to explain what works and what doesn't, and he had an uncanny grasp of how politics fits together.