The Prince - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469 into an old citizen family. Secretary, chancellor and military man, Machiavelli is notorious for his manifesto on power, The Prince.

Tim Parks was born in 1954, studied at Cambridge and Harvard, and moved to Italy in 1980. His translations from the Italian include works by Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino and Roberto Calasso. He currently lectures on literary translation in Milan. He has written a number of novels, and his account of provincial life in Italy, Italian Neighbours, was an international bestseller.

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If a ruler wants to survive, he must learn to stop being good.

[NB Art please note flap copy]

Aus dem Klappentext

The Prince is the most controversial book about winning power - and holding on to it - ever written. Machiavelli's tough-minded, pragmatic argument that sometimes it is necessary to abandon ethics to succeed made his name notorious. Yet his book has been read by strategists, politicians and business people ever since as the ultimate guide to realpolitik.

How can a leader be strong and decisive, yet still inspire loyalty in his followers? How do you keep your enemies in check? Is it better to be feared than loved? When is it necessary to break the rules? This shrewd handbook on how power really works answers all these questions by examining regimes and their rulers over the world and throughout history, from Roman Emperors to renaissance Popes, from the savagely cruel Hannibal to the utterly devious Cesare di Borgia.

As a diplomat in turbulent fifteenth-century Florence, Machiavelli knew how quickly political fortunes could rise and fall. Ultimately concerned not with lofty moral ideals but with building a regime that would last, The Prince recognized that power is always up for grabs and that the key to success is to adapt to circumstances.

Tim Parks's gripping contemporary translation delivers Machiavelli's no-nonsense original straight, making it as alarming and enlightening as when it was first written.