The Prince

I have many favorite books.  One that I fell in love with the first time I read it was The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli. Written in 1532, this timeless classic was groundbreaking on many levels.  It describes the methods tyrants use to get power and wield it.  He was arguably the first to separate politics from theology.  And the lessons one can learn from his short essays on various topics are just as timely today as they were to Florance, Italy during the Renaissance.

I own four different translations and I read it twice a year.  I pick up something useful every time I go through it.

Knowing a bit about the Midici family who were so central to his upbringing and later events in his life make the work more meaningful to me, personally, but there is no denying that the man was a genius all on his own. 

This work is widely misquoted and misunderstood - and has been ever since it was published.  The most common insult is that it is a manual for how to be a tyrant, but that is as incorrect as saying that a history book about ancient Egypt is a manual that recommends incest among the ruling class.  No, he merely outlined how tyrants behave to give the reader a better understanding of what leaders motivations are and their likely behaviors in the future.  Interestingly enough, his take on leaders is still spookily relevant - meaning we as humans aren't as "progressive" and "modern" as we'd like to think we are.

Here's a little something that caught my eye this morning:

"And he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watch-word of liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget.  And what ever you may do or provide against, they never forget that name or their privileges unless they are disunited or dispersed but at every chance they immediately rally to them..."

This is precisely why our own government keeps having swings to the right and to the left.  Both sides believe that their own way of living is true "freedom", but neither has the ability to permanently destroy their ideological foes when they assume power.  This ensures that our nation will continue to be a political battleground with rebellions of thought and policy being the norm - rather than the exception.  And despite what you may think or hear on the news, this is perfectly natural for America!  It's a far better system than a bloodbath after every election (a'la eighteenth-century France).  Not a bad insight for a guy who's been dead for 400 years, eh?

If you've never read it yourself, may I recommend it?  It's a short read, and you'll likely enjoy yourself!