The Prince (AmazonClassics Edition). This item is unavailable.The Prince (AmazonClassics Edition)

Direct and coldly pragmatic, Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince is the preeminent guide to winning and maintaining power at the highest levels, where deception and manipulation are necessary tools, and political allies should never be mistaken for friends.

Once a foreign policy official in his native Florence, Machiavelli was ousted by the Medici family. After surviving disgrace and torture at their hands, he penned The Prince to garner their favor. While this effort was ignored, the five-hundred-year-old work endures and is now considered one of the most influential―and controversial―political treatises of all time.

Revised edition: Previously published as The Prince, this edition of The Prince (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was born in Florence, Italy, a region run by the Medici family. He spent fourteen years as a diplomat for the republic, but his support of the creation of a militia under a new government caused him to be cast out by the Medicis. After his imprisonment, Machiavelli went into exile, where he wrote The Prince in 1513. The basis for the principles he championed in it were the result of his negotiations with the courts of France, Spain, and Italy as an envoy. He dedicated the book to the Medicis, to land a new position within their government, but it wasn’t until his poems and comedies found favor that he was permitted to return to public service.

The Prince was officially published in 1532, five years after Machiavelli’s death. Although his writings were later banned by the Roman Catholic Church, he was seen by many as a sharp observer of wielded power, strategy, and leadership. He continues to be recognized today as one of history’s most influential and devious political minds.