Rating: 
Summary: Cannot Be Used in Modern Times
Review: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli is the author's blueprint for good princely governance. It was written by an ex-public official of Florence in the 16th century. Machiavelli had intended the work to be a means to regain the favor of Lorenzo de'Medici, who had seized control of the Florentine Republic and had summarily removed Machiavelli from the office that he held.de'Medici did not trust Machiavelli and his supposed republican sympathies. Machiavelli meant for The Prince to be his statement of loyalty to the monarchy and his renouncement of republican values. As a means to an end The Prince ultimately failed. de'Medici never put any more faith in Machiavelli. Machiavelli lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity in his own time. However, The Prince has come down to us as the first study of political power. The Prince was not a design for good governance in the way we would think of it today with all its associated freedoms, liberties, and checks on governmental power. Instead, it was a design for good governance in terms of the local prince being able to maintain his grip on power. Usurpation was always a concern of princes in Machiavelli's day. Machiavelli's work was the means by which princes could avoid that usurpation. The Prince is an interesting study in power relations. Machiavelli's philosophy is very similar to Theodore Roosevelt's statement "speak softly but carry a big stick." Machiavelli believed that the prince who made too many idle threats would not only become an annoyance to his advisors but also a paper tiger with no real authority. Machiavelli's main concern was with keeping people in line. The best way to keep people in line was to let people know that you mean business but not to make them overly fearful of you. Your subjects should be rewarded for exceptional deeds and punished for bad ones. The oft cited section of The Prince is the one on whether it's better to be loved or feared. Machiavelli came down on the side of both. All princes should use a healthy dose of fear to keep his sbjects in line; but, he should also be able to reward those who remain loyal to him. The Prince is a period piece that doesn't translate to modern politics. When Machiavelli talked of punishing bad deeds, he really meant PUNISHING BAD DEEDS. Modern political leaders have no means other than removal from office to punish their rivals in any kind of real way. If your rival happens to be another elected official, then that isn't even an option. Today's politicians must use a balance of love and fear that is much heavier on the love because that is what they have at their disposal. Retribution doesn't work as well when you can't cause physical pain to your enemies.
Rating: 
Summary: An amoralist's review: watch out.
Review: Many before me have noted what an excellent treatise "The Prince" is, so I will not restate the obvious. Scroll down for actual book descriptions. I'd like to warn those who would apply recommendations in this treatise, though: be *extremely* careful. Never let anyone know you share Machiavelli's views on power as the absolute goal. They will not understand you and they will resent you. Remember, after the failure of the Soviet experiment, the so-called Western Civilization remains the only available form of society besides the ridiculous, heavy-handed Chinese, North Corean and Cuban dictatorships, and it is riddled with Judeo-Christian values. It is as though the news that the year is 2001 hasn't come home for most people yet. An example from personal experience. I'm an amoralist, I don't care about "values"; during a recent bilogy class, the discussion touched on improving animal grooming conditions to avoid antagonizing the public. While I don't mind pampering animals a bit, what I offered at the time was: instead of "refining" sensibilities, why don't we blunt them altogether? Why don't we start raising smart, cruel children? In this way, the public soon wouldn't care about farm animals and so wouldn't suffer, and efficiency wouldn't need to be sacrificed either. It would be a win-win. Imagine what ruckus the other students made! They stirred like trees in the wind, everyone sort of croaked and moaned, I immediately got labelled "heartless" and so forth. This is the kind of reaction you, too, will receive if you are open about being rational, i.e. ruthless. Remember, this is a culture that sends heart-shaped Valentines, that loves puppies and, in addition to having been permanently brainwashed by ads, is nowadays enthralled by New Agey nonsense about "wholeness" and all things spiritual. You will be hard-pressed to find anyone as "Machivellian" as you are, so get ready for a friendless life. Of course, once you've realized "The Prince" speaks the truth, you don't have much choice but to abide by it. If it's any consolation, exceptional persons are always martyrs. T.
Rating:
Summary: Essential reading
Review: If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, hoping to become a prince or, more plausibly nowadays, set yourself up in the despotism business, "The Prince" is essential reading. Many despots have used "The Prince" to help them learn their trade since Machiavelli wrote it in the early 16th Century. For example, Joseph Stalin studied "The Prince." And he rose from humble beginnings to become sole owner of the Soviet Union and many lesser satellite states. He seems to have felt that chapter 7, "Of Those Who Have Attained the Position of Prince by Villainy," did not apply to him, for he disregarded its most important advice. Speaking of cruelties, Machiavelli had said, "Cruelties ill committed are those which, although at first few, increase rather than diminish with time." Machiavelli also said that despots who increase their cruelties with time find it impossible to maintain themselves. And this proved true of Stalin. After a long life full of cruelties and murder, he finally convinced everyone that no one was safe from him. Finally, as an old man in increasing need of medical attention, he prepared to murder a large number of doctors, in the so-called Doctors' Plot. And it seems that his own doctors killed him first. Some commentators have said that "The Prince" is a satire, not meant to be taken literally. But Machiavelli had been tortured, ruined and exiled from Florence by the time he wrote "The Prince." He probably was not in a mood for jokes.
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Summary: A Guide for Today's politicians to gain and keep power
Review: I first thought that the main purpose of the book was the need Machiavelli part in politics. He had a love for the "art." As I further read I found out that his love for politics has enabled him to create a masterful plan of becoming an guide for today's politics.
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Summary: Read JK Marriott's Machiavelli ...
Review: 'The Prince' must be mandatory reading for anyone dealing with groups of people, not as a manual for action, but as a weapon against those who opt Machiavelli's operating principles, which unfortunately, is often a natural response in a power struggle. "The Prince" has been reviewed "here" ad nauseam with mixed quality. The noise may make it difficult for readers to focus their attention on the value of this book which, after 500 years, should be self evident. Machiavelli states, "... good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsel." Thus, all would-be prince-readers should immerse themselves into Machiavelli's thoughts from a free Project Gutenberg version and should it prove fruitless, no further action need be done. Among various versions, the crispness and eloquence of the JK Marriott translation is without equal and ideal in the acid free paper Everyman hardcover edition, complete with ribbon bookmark. The Everyman size is perfect, it opens almost flat, its paper is rigid and crisps with page turns, providing a suitable tactility for Machivelli's revelations.
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Summary: THINK BEFORE YOU QUOTE
Review: It is easy to be reductionist about anything and Machiavelli is no exception. Place Machiavelli in the here and the now and you will see a modern day Lawyer or Management Consultant or Political Strategist. Stripped of all the trappings and layers the ages have placed on "The Prince", Niccolo Machiavelli is nothing more than a consultant, just doing his job. Machiavelli is a sort of strategist for Lorenzo De Medici. In the tradition of Sun Tzu, Machiavelli advises that ruling is a state of constant warfare and the protagonists must be vigilant. He advises: "A Prince, therefore, must have no other object or thought, nor acquire skill in anything, except War, its organization, and its discipline." (p. 46). With all the changes taking place in the big picture and small picture in the fields of Economics and Commerce, you get the funny feeling that the more things change, the more they really stay the same. That all the tenets outlined are timeless and can apply today can be debated till we are blue in the face. However, one thing does ring true: "I know everyone will agree that it would be most laudable if a Prince possessed all the qualities deemed good among these I have enumerated. But because of conditions in the world, Princes cannot have these qualities, or observe them completely. So a Prince has of necessity to be so prudent that he knows how to escape the evil reputation attached to those vices which could lose him his state, and how to avoid those vices which are not so dangerous. if he possibly can; but, if he cannot, he need not worry so much about the latter. And then, he must not flinch from being blamed for vices which are necessary for safeguarding the state. This is because, taking everything into account, he will find that some of the things that appear to be virtues will, if he practices them, ruin him, and some of the things that appear to be vices will bring him security and prosperity." Well, Dorothy, you can kiss Kansas good-bye. Can man transcend him/her self enough to hear what Machiavelli is saying - that the nature of things just does not allow us to be virtues. Are we really just more sophisticated animals with a veneer of technology and so called civilization but we are simply playing the cycle of life over and over? Before anyone is tempted to reduce Machiavelli and to quote him as most people do - we should to the Bible, The Communist Manifesto and Thus Spake Zarathustra - read it! For those of you who often quote Machiavelli without having read him first, I cordially invite you - no challenge you - to pick up this volume and really hear him - I strongly believe and even defend Machiavelli - this is not advocacy of vice but simply a realist pointing out to a Prince the things one needs to do to preserve a state. Next time you are tempted to say "The end justifies the means." think whether Machiavelli meant it to be use that way. I short but solid read a 5 stars for generations to come. Miguel Llora
Rating:
Summary: political ingenious
Review: Machiavelli is both devious and delightful in "The Prince". Any political theorist or philosopher will enjoy his sarcastic antics and impious incinuations. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in political theory and/or political humor.
Rating: 
Summary: Thorough Destruction of Political Morality
Review: The solidification of Niccolo Machivelli's ethical depravation from his political philosophies will trouble Christian person's moral backgrounds. And they also trouble my own philosophy on government and rule because politics should be tight friends with Morality but not to the extreme that they overpower the physical or mental freedom of the people. Thoroughly Machiavelli attempts to disprove the need for Christian morals and rather revert to basing decisions on Political necessity and thus amorality. However logical Machiavelli's arguments may seem, for the majority, his arguments are incorrect. Political necessity is not the greater good as what he advocates. Political necessity is the entire populace of a national state of the world. Machiavelli's arguments isolate social freedom and prioritize the self-interest of "The Prince's" definition of the best for the people. He states that although Christian Morals are good, cruelty should be used to provide this Morality in the future. Although Machiavelli misunderstands what "greater good" is, for a greater good produced by a lesser evil is no longer a greater good but rather a greater evil, his arguments can be used to produce a functional free socialist society instead of a constricted police state. Make sure you read critically of The Prince, although Niccolo Machiavelli's arguments are logical they justify human nature to say that the ends justify the means. Hopefully everyone will understand, eventually, that Machiavelli is wrong in this letter to Lorenzo the Magnificent and infact the ends never justify the means unless there is no other possible decision one can make.
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Summary: Unique view of ruthless leadership
Review: The best that can be said about this book is that it is an incomplete view of leadership. Those who say that it is realistic might have a point, but what would the prince have to say about the nonviolent tactics of the greatest leader of the twentieth century: Gandhi. And what would Machiavelli say of Lincoln's pardoning of southern officers after the war? I'm afraid Machiavelli does not speak to this kind of magnamanity at all, which I think says there is something lacking in The Prince. To be fair, Machiavelli does have quite a following (in the US, perhaps LBJ and Nixon are his greatest students). But following what this book says may ultimately make you a failure as a leader. If you are looking for a less simplified and more nuanced view of leadership, take a look at Sun Tzu's Art of War, or even the Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.
Rating: 
Summary: A must read for all!
Review: One those must-read books that unfortunately defines a good deal of our history.
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