The 48 Laws Of Power - Hardcover

Greene, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1861971346 ISBN 13: 9781861971340

Publisher: Profile Books, 1998

Synopsis

Drawn from 3,000 years of the history of power, this book is intended as a guide to help readers achieve for themselves what Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissinger, Louis XIV and Machiavelli learned the hard way.'

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.

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1861971346
• ISBN 13: 9781861971340
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 480