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.

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