[books 2014] The Prince
26. The Prince by Niccolo Macchiavelli
We've been watching The Borgias, and it made me realise I've never read The Prince, and it's one of those books that everybody thinks they know but is misused and misquoted and probably not at all what most people think it is.
And it's short.
It's not about being as power-hungry and ruthless as you expect. And where he is, he's coming from the standpoint of living in a country that's been torn apart by civil war for generations and he'd just like a nice strong ruler to bring some stability, thanks. And he's big on not oppressing the people, which was unexpected.
In some bits you think "that's cold", but in other places he makes a lot of sense (like the long list of why mercenaries will come back to bite you in the butt).
And then 2/3 of the way through my stupid brain came up with "that's Lord Vetinari, that is" and I started to read the whole thing through the prism of Ankh-Morporkh.
It took longer to read that I would expect from a book this size, but it's quite dense and needs some time between chapters to compile and process. I wouldn't exactly say I enjoyed it, but I learned a lot and it makes a whole lot of things in Western culture fall into place nicely.
We've been watching The Borgias, and it made me realise I've never read The Prince, and it's one of those books that everybody thinks they know but is misused and misquoted and probably not at all what most people think it is.
And it's short.
It's not about being as power-hungry and ruthless as you expect. And where he is, he's coming from the standpoint of living in a country that's been torn apart by civil war for generations and he'd just like a nice strong ruler to bring some stability, thanks. And he's big on not oppressing the people, which was unexpected.
In some bits you think "that's cold", but in other places he makes a lot of sense (like the long list of why mercenaries will come back to bite you in the butt).
And then 2/3 of the way through my stupid brain came up with "that's Lord Vetinari, that is" and I started to read the whole thing through the prism of Ankh-Morporkh.
It took longer to read that I would expect from a book this size, but it's quite dense and needs some time between chapters to compile and process. I wouldn't exactly say I enjoyed it, but I learned a lot and it makes a whole lot of things in Western culture fall into place nicely.