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Zusatztext “[Machiavelli] can still engage our attention with remarkable immediacy! and this cannot be explained solely by the appeal of his ironic observations on human behaviour. Perhaps the most important thing is the way he can compel us to reflect on our own priorities and the reasoning behind them; it is this intrusion into our own defenses that makes reading him an intriguing experience. As a scientific exponent of the political art Machiavelli may have had few followers; it is as a provocative rhetorician that he has had his real impact on history.” –from the Introduction by Dominic Baker-Smith Informationen zum Autor Peter Constantine , winner of the PEN Translation Prize and a National Translation Award, has earned wide acclaim for his translation of The Undiscovered Chekhov and of the complete works of Isaac Babel, as well as for his Modern Library translations, which include The Essential Writings of Machiavelli, Gogol’s Taras Bulba, Voltaire’s Candide, and Tolstoy’s The Cossacks . Albert Russell Ascoli is Gladys Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor of Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and was awarded the Rome Prize for study at the American Academy in Rome. Klappentext Here is the world's most famous master plan for seizing and holding power. Astonishing in its candor The Prince even today remains a disturbingly realistic and prophetic work on what it takes to be a prince . . . a king . . . a president. When, in 1512, Machiavelli was removed from his post in his beloved Florence, he resolved to set down a treatise on leadership that was practical, not idealistic. In The Prince he envisioned would be unencumbered by ordinary ethical and moral values; his prince would be man and beast, fox and lion. Today, this small sixteenth-century masterpiece has become essential reading for every student of government, and is the ultimate book on power politics.Chapter 1 The Prince The Kinds of Principalities and the Means by Which They Are Acquired All states and all dominions that hold and have held power over men have been and are either republics or principalities. Principalities are either hereditary, in which case the family of the ruler has long been in power, or they are new. The new ones are either entirely new, as Milan was to Francesco Sforza,1 or they are, so to speak, members added to the hereditary possession of the prince who acquires them, as the Kingdom of Naples is to the King of Spain.2 The dominions thus acquired have been accustomed either to live under a prince or to be free; and they are acquired either by fortune or by ability.3 Chapter 2 Hereditary Principalities I shall exclude any discussion of republics, having discussed them at length elsewhere.1 I shall consider principalities alone and, following the indicated plan, shall discuss how they may be governed and preserved. I say, then, that hereditary states accustomed to the family of their ruler are more easily kept than new ones, because it is sufficient if the prince does not abandon the methods of his ancestors and proves adaptable when unforeseen events occur. In this way a prince of ordinary capability will always keep his state unless he is deprived of it by an exceptional or exceedingly powerful force. If he is once deprived of it, however, he will nevertheless regain it at the slightest adversity that the conqueror encounters. In Italy we have the example of the Duke of Ferrara, who was able to sustain the assaults of the Venetians in 1484 and those of Pope Julius in 1510 for no other reason than that he had been long established in that dominion.2 The hereditary prince has less cause and less need to offend than a new one. Hence it follows that he is more readily loved. If unusual vices do not make him hated, it is reasonable t...
