Book Review: The Prince Essay

Richelieu’s section regarding the power of the prince was particularly reminiscent of 15th century Italian political strategist Niccoló Machiavelli’s seminal work, The Prince. The Prince also deals with the management of one’s people, and argued

Author and philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli, in the excerpt from his book, “The Morals of the Prince”, describes the different ways of being a successful prince. Machiavelli’s purpose is to show readers how hard he life of a prince really is. He adopts an informative tone in order to convey to his audience that princes are only human and they will be criticized for every little thing. Machiavelli effectively convinces his audience of what makes a good prince through the use of formal diction, appealing to ethos, and appealing to logos.

In the text The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli works to create a political system that recognizes failures in human nature and attempts to manipulate them in creating stability. Machiavelli proposes a concept of the Prince and the

      Machiavelli goes on to stress that while it can be beneficial to appear a good and honorable man, a prince must always be prepared to resort to

According to Machiavelli, he believes the ideal prince must be a force by the necessity of being ruthless and at all will to use a conventional morality to keep his power in order. Although the prince should be ruthless Machiavelli mentions the prince must appear to be fair even if he is not. His firm belief is that any prince must do whatever that is necessary to deal with any issues that are faced in a prince path. Of course, with that being said sometimes the prince must be dishonest. Machiavelli believes that to be a prince you have to be willing to lie to people so they can hear what they wish to hear, but at all cost must make the people believe he is telling the truth and only the truth. Even if a prince does not have all the good qualities

In the novel The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, Machiavelli establishes the crucial characteristics and actions that a successful prince should have. The author's views on human nature contribute to the impact that his warnings made on the prince. Machiavelli enforces these points with metaphors and specific examples that still apply to modern-day society.

Niccolo Machiavelli’s most famous book, The Prince, contains the most valid information for a prince, a president, and even a king, to keep hold of their own power. Machiavelli tells about the importance and power of political action, his opinions, and most of all philosophy at it’s finest. Throughout the twenty-six chapters of this book he describes the bold, brave, practical, and powerful prince and how the prince’s life should be lived. Machiavelli’s view of human nature is used as justification for his political advice to princes. Niccolo Machiavelli was very intelligent, motivated, and dedicated while writing this book, he attempts to inform princes how to come to power by being powerful; he determines if nature and the environment a prince lives in is the cause of their failure and success.

The Prince was written by Niccolo Machiavelli for Guiliano de Medici, whose family had just recently ascended to the crown of Italy. The book was written to Prince Medici as a job application, due to the previous royal family, in which Machiavelli worked for, being removed from power thus leaving him without a job. This paper will touch on how it is a renaissance work, the renaissance values present in the text, and why the text was controversial.

“Machiavelli's the Prince: Still Relevant after All These Years |BU Today| Boston University.” BU Today, CAS History Department, 26 Feb. 2013,

There has been controversy between scholars about author Niccolo Machiavelli. His two famous works The Prince and The Discourses are two books which discuss monarchy and republic government and how both need to work to be efficient. The question asked is how can the author of The Prince also have written The Discourses? How can Machiavelli write about a republic with separation of power, then write about how a new established monarchy can work and survive? We will discuss the ideas set forth in both books and decide whether or not Machiavelli works are consistent or contradictory.

The great philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, having such beliefs, puts to rest man’s downfall and presents that way to preservation in his book The Prince, which produces an effective guide for political action based off of his own philosophical beliefs and history’s past. The Prince rest on the principle that, above all, the foundation for a ruler’s success is within verita effettuale—or, the effectiveness of a prince’s rule. Machiavelli urges rulers to focus on acting in ways that will result in the best political dominance rather than to be concerned with what others think of his actions. Furthermore, he mandates that for a prince to uphold his objective as the maintainer of the state, he must not be bound to a set code of morality. With that, Machiavelli takes out what was previously said on human morals and teaches that rulers do not, in fact, need to possess personal moral character in order to be effective political leaders. Indeed, a prince must learn to pay attention to moral qualities in such a manner as to be able to use them to gain the necessary power to control the state. He claims, a prince “should not deviate from what is good, if that is possible, but he should know how to do evil, if that is necessary” (Machiavelli). With this in mind, Machiavelli addresses how a prince should best use love, hate, fear, and cruelty to garner the most effective political rule possible.

Machiavelli has long been required reading for everyone intrested in politics and power. In The Prince Niccolo M

Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian diplomat, and political theorist wrote: “The Prince” in 1513, which was published in 1532 five years after his death. It is said that he wrote, “The Prince” to return to reclaim backing from The House of Medici and return to his political position. According to Machiavelli, it is important that he understands how not to get a bad reputation due to having such a vice that deprives him of the position. However, he states that a prince should not be troubled if a bad reputation precedes him.

First let us discuss the ideas of Niccolo Machiavelli in is piece “The Prince”. Machiavelli has a very independent controversial way of thinking and portraying his ideal form of governance in this text. The ideal and most effective from of governance for him is not in that of a republic but instead he insists in an autocratic regime. He argues that republics and other forms of government are too weak because of the corruptness of human nature. This book is written as a guide on how a prince should run his state or nation based on how and when he would come into this power. One of his main concerns in which he has been criticized for is his disregard to follow moral values so as to properly run the state, as well as

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli provides an analysis on how to govern and maintain power in a principality. In the first five chapters, he defines the three ways a monarch can acquire his dominion: either he inherits it, whether he creates a new one, or annexes territories, and further discusses how to govern them. Machiavelli states that hereditary principalities are less problematic than the mixed ones since newly acquired dominion tend to be more rebellious. The ruler must therefore colonize them and allow citizen to keep their laws or annihilate the governmental structure. In order to illustrate his point, he analyses the success of Alexander the Great conquest in Iran.