New book in My Library - The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli

I’ve settled a new inhabitant to my bookshelf - it is “The Prince” by Nicolo Machiavelli.

This book was recommended to me by my friend Vadim Tikanov as a “Must Read” thing few years ago, but while I’ve been reading more technical things that time this recommendation was left without proper attention.

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Once, walking through a book shop and trying to pick something for my older daughter, my sight has stopped on a familiar title - The Prince, and familiar author - Nicolo Machiavelli…

I’ve finished its reading on last weekend, so, as usual, I would like to share my impression on this book.

I found this book very similar to “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu in terms of its style and soul. It’s quite interesting if there is any single chance that Nicolo Machiavelli was inspired by Sun Tzu… Many of the points of view and recommendations are mostly the same (or very close to each other).

“The Prince” is a manual about Power, about how people get it, use it, keep it and lose it… Book is full of analytics and findings that are grounded on historical cases that have happened to kings, princes, senators and other powerful persons of those times.

One of the most important findings for myself is that I realized that the meaning of such concepts as “good”, “evil”, “honor” and “cruelty”, etc for powerful people can be very different from how these concepts are known to ordinary people.

I also found that many of key points are still very relevant nowadays. It looks a bit curious to me because this work of Nicolo Machiavelli was created ~6 centuries ago… How long could it stay relevant? Or it’s just about human nature and “World never changes”?..

I do recommend “The Prince” by Nicolo Machiavelli to you, Friends (especially, for those of you who are interested in politics and management).