The Prince. This item is unavailable.The Prince

The most famous book on politics ever written, The Prince remains as lively and shocking today as when it was written almost five hundred years ago. Initially denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, it has more recently been defended and indeed applauded as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced. A masterpiece of effective prose, The Prince is at once comic and formidable, imaginative and calculating, fascinating and chilling. Its influence in modern history has been profound, and - often considered to be the first modern book - it was surely a primary text for the modern philosophers who challenged the traditions of ancient and medieval thought and morality. Mansfield's translation of this classic work, in combination with the new material added for this edition, makes it the definitive version of The Prince, indispensable to scholars, students, and lovers of the dark art of politics.

Robert M. Adams was Professor of English (Emeritus) at the University of California at Los Angeles. He was the author of many books, including Ikon: John Milton and the Modern Critics; Strains of Discord; Proteus, His Lies, His Truth: Discussion of Literary Translation; The Land and Literature of England; and Shakespeare-The Four Romances. In addition to the Norton Critical Edition of Utopia (he was translator and editor of the First and Second Editions), Professor Adams was editor of five other Norton Critical Editions, including The Prince by Machiavelli, Candide by Voltaire, and The Praise of Folly and Other Writings by Erasmus, the texts of which he also translated. He was a founding editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.