The Art of War & The Prince (Mass Market Paperback)

~ Niccolo Machiavelli (Author), William K. Marriott (Translator)
Key Phrases: front road, extraordinary pikemen, thirty arm lengths, The Art of War, Niccoló Machiavelli, Heads of Ten (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This Special Edition of The Art of War & The Prince by Machiavelli unites both of Machiavelli’s renowned volumes on strategy so that the philosophy and mechanisms for obtaining power and managing power may be seen as a single entity. Possessed of a great intellect, Niccolo Machiavelli was uniquely suited to examine and explain the important details of statecraft.

Machiavelli, like Plato and Pythagoras and Confucius two hundred odd decades before him, saw only one method by which a thinking man, himself not powerful, might do the work of state building, and that was by seizing the imagination of a Prince. With these writings, he has influenced the history of the world.

Machiavelli has so influenced human civilization that the very term: Machiavellian, has come to mean that which is characterized by expediency, deceit, and cunning. A prime example is his advice: "A wise prince, when he has the opportunity, ought with craft to foster some animosity against himself, so that, having crushed it, his renown may rise higher." His advice, on this and other suggested intrigues, has been heeded by various heads of state for over four hundred years.

Other Special Editions in this series that deal with the subject of warfare and strategy include:
The Art of War By Sun Tzu - Special Edition
The Art of War By Mao Tse-tung - Special Edition
The Art of War By Baron De Jomini - Special Edition
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: bnpublishing.com (October 21, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9562911004
• ISBN-13: 978-9562911009
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 4.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,386,874 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ends Justify The Means, June 18, 2005

By	Sam Butler - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of War & The Prince by Machiavelli (Paperback)

The combination of these two works into one unified book shows how clearly Machiavelli saw the value of power. His vision was straightforward: Might Makes Right. Or, at least, morality is only important to the survivors. The application of hard, cold logic to the ends of grasping and wielding power was applied by Machiavelli in these two discourses with astonishing clarity.

In Machiavelli's philosophy, success was all important. His is the prime example of the doctrine of "The Ends Justify the Means." To win, to obtain and hold power and thereby achieve fame and glory was considered by Machiavelli to be the only worthy goal of those who had an opportunity to find greatness in the exercise of power.

The combination of these two important documents in one volume reinforces his view that success by any means is justifiable if one succeeds. After all, the winner writes the epitaph. Who can argue that the victor, with the reins of power firmly in his grasp, does not have the right to tell the story so his side is presented in the best possible light?

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beware the White Covers!, July 26, 2009

By	Justin Lange (Muncie, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Art of War & the Prince (Paperback)

I purchased 3 of these Wilder "white cover" books dealing with The Art of War (feel free to view my other reviews for more info). In this case, as with the others, I found numerous, ridiculous typographic errors in this book, too numerous to mention. Amazon apparently lumps together reviews for books with the same title, because if you look carefully, you'll notice that most of these reviews pre-date the actual publication date of the "white cover" edition of this book, and were from the "orange cover" edition of this book.

If you purchase the white cover edition of this book (or the other Arts of War), you will not receive the scholarly work you might expect from the reviews, instead, like me, you will receive 3 cheap paperbacks that are so horribly edited they are a waste of a perfectly good tree. I had to return all 3 to purchase the correct editions of these works, which you can find under "The Art of War - Special Edition" and have orange covers. Why Amazon allows these mistakes to go on is beyond me, but luckily they were very nice about the returns. Beware the white covers!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A no nonsense edition, December 7, 2006

By	D. Pulse - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Art of War & The Prince by Machiavelli (Paperback)

I have read "The Prince" previously...both in school, and then again as an adult. On a whim, I ordered this book and had a nice "sit down with a good book evening" and really found myself enthralled with Machiavelli's view of the world and how it has shaped political thinking all the way until the current time. Reading Machiavelli's "Art of War" was the perfect compliment to "The Prince". I was also grateful to the editor for not inserting unnecessary commentary or attempting to color Machiavelli's opinions with irrelevant material.