The Prince Review

The Prince by Niccolт Machiavelli isn't about one man's ways to feed his power hungry mindset through gluttony, nor is it just explaining altercations between a nation's states. This writing is regarding to how one's self-confidence can make them become powerful in a society and also, the way morals and politics differ and can be separate in a government. Originally, Machiavelli wrote The Prince to gain support from Lorenzo de' Medici, who during the era, was governor of Florence. As meant as writing for how a society should be run, this book has been read by many peoples around the world who want to have better knowledge of the perfect stability of beliefs and politics required to run a good civilization.

Enlightening persons from the average Joe to the high monarchs of countries, The Prince is one of the best, if not the best, books relating to politics of all time. Machiavelli explains how to gain power in a government and once you gain it, he explains how to keep it. The first few chapters of the book set the tone for the rest of the writing. Early in his work, he says that all high powers can be separated into two totally different groups: principalities and republics. The Prince is written with dictatorial type regimes, and not with republican regimes. Niccolт seems to ignore the republican regimes which must mean that, at the time, he did not think that this would get very far or would not help anybody. Machiavelli goes onto explain the various principalities and princes. He creates an outline for the rest of the book during this explanation. To become a prince, he says that there is no way any normal person can become one, as the way this is acquired is either by hereditary means or is appointed to by the state itself. Obviously, the easier path of the two is to be appointed by hereditary means following their ancestors, since bloodlines are easiest to trace and keep track of.

Later in his writing, he introduces to us the three main concepts of the book: power politics, war craft, and popular goodwill. Machiavelli describes that principalities are created or annexed from another power so that the prince does not know who he is ruling. From there, he goes on and offers tips on how to gain and hold the new states. Niccolт takes the time to advise how to make alliances with others and also, how to keep a strong and balanced military. He mentions some of the advantages and disadvantages that apply to various routes to power. Also in this section, he tells his views on free will, human nature, and ethics, but he does this only very minutely, as he goes on about this later in his work.

The next section of the book goes on about just the prince himself. Machiavelli saw that arrogant beliefs translate into a bad government. The prince shouldn't be, so to say an arrogant donkey, to lose the respect he had gained, but he shouldn't show any weakness either. If weakness is shown, people will walk over him like they would a welcome mat and ignore his set of laws. Laws are needed to keep a nation state in order, so if the prince cannot keep his state running smoothly, bad events may come out from his neglect of action. Some things he chooses to do will be frowned upon, however sometimes, vicious actions are needed to set the people of the state straight. The prince must learn how to keep control over the state he was picked to control. In a world like today, if a prince can't keep order, the state he has power over will be come mass chaos and people will riot leading to other states looking down at the prince's state.

The closing chapters of The Prince connect the book to a specific historical context: Italy's disunity. Machiavelli courteously explains how the past Italian rulers have failed to do their parts through his own perspective. He then goes onto conclude his work by placing an emotional request to the future rulers of Italy to make sure they do a well done job. As a leader, one should not ally himself with people more powerful than himself. If that happens, then that person will be overtaken and lose everything they had worked to gain. Because the book was dedicated to Lorenzo