The 48 Laws of Power - Hardcover

Greene Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670881465 ISBN 13: 9780670881468

Publisher: Viking, 1998

Synopsis

Artistically designed by the packager of The Secret Language of Birthdays and printed in red and black, a useful and illuminating collection distills the ways of power from history and the writings of Machiavelli, Von Clausewitz, and others. 50,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Review

"Learning the game of power requires a certain way of looking at the world, a shifting of perspective," writes Robert Greene. Mastery of one's emotions and the arts of deception and indirection are, he goes on to assert, essential. The 48 laws outlined in this book "have a simple premise: certain actions always increase one's power...while others decrease it and even ruin us."

The laws cull their principles from many great schemers--and scheming instructors--throughout history, from Sun-Tzu to Talleyrand, from Casanova to con man Yellow Kid Weil. They are straightforward in their amoral simplicity: "Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit," or: "Discover each man's thumbscrew." Each chapter provides examples of the consequences of observance or transgression of the law, along with "keys to power," potential "reversals" (where the converse of the law might also be useful), and a single paragraph cleverly laid out to suggest an image (such as the aforementioned thumbscrew); the margins are filled with illustrative quotations. Practitioners of one-upmanship have been given a new, comprehensive training manual, as up- to-date as it is timeless. --Amazon.com

Review

'Invaluable manual on the use and abuse of power... indispensable and often-cited influence on many of America's most successful rappers' -- Sunday Times Magazine

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670881465
• ISBN 13: 9780670881468
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 452