About this title: Inspired by Machiavelli's instructional book for young princes, this modern guide for business and everyday life tells how to gain, keep, and distribute power.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hard Board
Publisher: Profile Books, London
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9781861971395ISBN:1861971397
Description: Good in Good jacket. Used hardback in good condition, little shelf wear. In a bold and elegant text, laid out in black and red and replete with fables and unique word sculptures, the laws are illustrated through the tactics, triumphs, and failures of such figures as the shrewd Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kisssinger, Barnum and many others. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9781861974884ISBN:1861974884
Description: Published by Profile Books Ltd in 1999. Binding: Paperback. Number of pages: 182. Condition: Like NEW. No defects, may have been previously read. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PROFILE BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9781861972781ISBN:1861972784
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 463 pages. (463 pages) drawn from 3, 000 years of the history of power, this guide helps readers achieve for themselves what queen elizabeth i, henry kissinger, louis xiv and machiavelli learnt the hard way. colour illustrations (Paperback) read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Penguin USA, E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780140280197ISBN:0140280197
Description: Good + Cover has bumping, marks, scratches, chipping, creases, small dent damage tear-Edgewear-Marks on edge-Bumped pgs-Few marks-Writing on FFEP. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Penguin USA, E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780140280197ISBN:0140280197
Description: Very Good. Moderate shelf wear to corners, creases on front cover, light edgewear, binding is loose, dampstains on bottom edge of book, sticker on back cover. read more
"This is an interesting book at the convergence of history and strategy that needs a good editor to shorten it. Mr. Greene has assembled a massive compendium from a select range of sources. As such, he offers limited new insight.
I had several problems with the book:
1. I found that it had logical inconsistencies, particularly between various "laws," that would stifle efforts at applying the princples.
2. I disagreed ethically with recommendations in certain laws, since they recommend ways of gaining power that exploit others when other means exist to reach the same ends."
"This book was sent to me while I was living in California. While riding the subway there, I had read some pages over a woman's shoulder and was fascinated by it. I told my girlfriend all about it and she sent it. It has a lot of insightful examples and quotes from various periods of time and parts of the world. I do recommend this for learning about yourself and others, but do not recommend it if you are not a discerning reader. It's basically a book that teaches how to manipulate people. How to con them. There are principles here useful for persuasion, or for understanding the social realm, but others are malicious in nature."
We all tell lies and hide our true feelings, for complete free expression is a social impossibility. From an early age we learn to conceal our thoughts, telling the prickly and insecure what we know they want to hear, watching carefully lest we offend them. For most of us this is natural - there are ideas and values that most people accept, and it is pointless to argue. We believe what we want to, then, but on the outside we wear a mask.
There are people, however, who see such restraints as an intolerable infringement on their freedom, and who have a need to prove the superiority of their values and beliefs. In the end, though, their arguments convince only a few and offend a great deal more. The reason arguments do not work is that most people hold their ideas and values without thinking about them. There is a strong emotional content in their beliefs; They really do not want to have to rework their habits of thinking, and when you challenge them, whether directly through your arguments or indirectly through your behavior, they are hostile.
Wise and clever people learn early on that they can display conventional behavior and mouth conventional ideas without having to believe in them. The power these people gain from blending in is that of being left along to have the thoughts they want to have, and to express them to the people they want to express them to, without suffering isolation or ostracism. Once they have established themselves in a position of power, they can try to convince a wider circle of the corrections of their ideas - perhaps working indirectly, using Campanells' strategies of irony and insinuation."
"This book is basically a history text on power. While the negative criticisms are somwhat justified - yes it is a book telling you how to be deceitful and oppresive and destructive - I would say it is better to learn these lessons whether you plan on using them or not. If you plan on becoming powerful, this book sets the guidelines down perfectly. If you plan on being spiritual or ethical, then this book allows you to prepare yourself against those trying to decieve you.
I just read it for the history stories and that alone satisfied me"
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