What's the /his/ opion on The Prince?

He said humans are little shit that would take any chance to fuck each other if they can gain something from it.

So, in order to be the less fucked, you need to fuck them first and harder, so hard they can't attempt to turn back and get revenge.

He was based.

>>2940375
men are to be treated with kindness or crushed entirely.

i liked the book, helped me out in my climb up the management ladder.

>>2940375
I think it was pretty comfy. For someone who used have a strong interest in ancient and renaissance history I appreciated his mixing of examples from antiquity and his own time to illustrate his examples in a clear fashion.

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>>2940375
Machiavelli was based.

I thought the most interesting part was towards the end when he starts talking about how to cultivate yourself into a military leader, but I never see anyone else mention it.

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>>2940375

read it when I was 16, thought it would be le edgy 48 laws of power kind of stuff, instead I received a vision of renaissance Italian society

>>2940375
Great book often misread. Whenever I read Livy I'll get to his Discourses which should be great also.

I think it's an early example of self-help literature (not philosophy) along with Sun-Tzu's Art of War. My favorite concept is that of giving your adversary a graceful way out lest they fight to the death like a cornered animal.

>>2941576
>often misread
Go on?

>>2941590
>I think it's an early example of self-help literature
Well it was initially written as a letter to the Duke of Milan in the hopes that he would hire Machiavelli as his prime minister and the two would then be able to implement his ideas and put Italy on a path towards unification. That's why the conclusion at the end starts talking about the urgent need for Italian unification, and that if the status quo of the italian wars continues then Italy will find itself gobbled up by France and Spain, which it was.

>>2942141
>Milan
florence for restored medicis

>>2942141
>a unified italy
muh dik. imagine a united italy in the early modern period. they would have kicked all sorts of ass during ww1 and 2.

>>2941567
How is 48 laws of power edgy?

>>2942156
>not using Robert Greene's work to become le edgy S&M Master
Man anon, you really missed out. You won't believe how many guys these books have let me cuck.

>>2941590
There's a lot of great advice, such as turning former adversaries into your most loyal allies by being unexpectedly good to them, and how a fool will never follow good advice so there is a wisdom in actually listening to good advisors.

>>2942122
A few examples are edgy, such as letting a cruel subordinate run free and then ending them yourself to make an example and make yourself out to be a saviour of the people. People think this edgyness can't be how rulers actually rule effectively, so they think it must be satire on tyrannical princes and the ways they keep in power.

I don't think it was ever intended as that and it misses a lot of historical context in doing so.

>>2942141
My bad. I thought the topic of this thread was our opinions on the book and not its historical context.

>>2942162
I still haven't read that, I'll try it

>>2942186
Greene's the next one up on my reading list, although I'm unsure what order I should read his books in.

>>2941576
yes. The Prince is like the appendix to the Discourses, the worst-case scenario if all-else-fails kind of shit.

but reading about the republic is hardly as sexy as an iron-fisted dictator, is it?