The Prince

A good reading of The Prince. This is the translation by Luigi Ricci, with a revision by E.R.P. Vincent. If you want to follow along with the text this translation is available in "The Prince and The Discourses" w/an introduction by Max Lerner. (The Modern Library, New York). If you listen to Machiavelli and just don't get it, I recommend "Machiavelli on Modern Leadership" by Michael A. Ledeen. He has some modern day Machiavellian examples that may help you grasp some of the concepts/theories.

Together with Sun Tzu's Art of War and Plato's Republic, the Prince is the third view of how Power and Fortune should be handled.

After all I had heard of this book, I was very disappointed. I was expecting a story that had some political commentary. What I got was a political treatice so dated that I was unable to follow it. I am not a student of history and thus was continually confused by his many references to other historical personages and events.

Runger makes a valient effort to bring the book to life. He just has a tremendous challenge that is difficult to overcome.

Here are a few quotes
"But when dominions are acquired in a province differeing in language, laws and customs, the difficulties to be overcome are great, and it requires good fortune as well as great industry to retain them; one of the best and most certain means of doing so would be for the new ruler to take up his residence there."
Hmmm
"The desire to acquire possessions is a very natural and ordinary thing, and when those men do it who can do so successfully, they are always praised and not blamed, but when they canot and yet want to do so at all costs, they make a mistake deserving of great blame."

"For the Romans did in these cases what all wise princes should do, who consider not only present but also future discords and diligently guard against them; for being foreseen they can easily be remedied, but if one waits till they are at hand, the medicine is no longer in time as the malady has become incurable; ....Thus it happens in matters of state; for knowing afar off (which it is only given to a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow so that everyone can recogise them, there is no longer any remedy to be found."
Just some nuggets in chapter 3 there is much more wisdom in here.

I've been wanting to read this book for many years, but never got around to cracking it open. With all of the raves about the book that I heard from others and read on Amazon, I thought that this book must hold some incredible nuggets of truth and wisdom. So, I was delighted to find that the book is on audio.

I guess that if I were required to read this book for school, it would be much less painful to hear it on audio than to have to actually read every word. I don't think that I could stay awake through a page.

I would have rated the book with only one star, but the audio is well done -- I give the narrator credit for trying to inject some enthusiasm in to the words and make it sound interesting.

After listening to a portion of the book, I would stop and ask myself, "Now what did I learn from that?" The answer was always nothing. It is much like sitting through a corporate meeting where some high level manger gives an important sounding speech. Then when you get back to your desk and reflect on the meeting, you realize that he said a lot of stuff about nothing.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get the hype surrounding The Prince.

Not much plot, but interesting background. Glad I listened to it, but not sure I could recommend it to someone who isn't already interested.

I liked this book well enough. I really, really liked Herodotus as a historian, though. Marco Polo did not have much insight into people, though he must have gotten along with them pretty well. I think this book is famous because it was the first accounting of large areas of the world, even for the well-traveled Venitians. Marco Polo found a lot of the people he visited to be either infidels or idolators. Apparently to me, anyway, he thought the infidels to be more advanced than the idolators.