Bücher von Niccolò Machiavelli

"Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are."The Prince is generally labelled as a cynical and overly pragmatic account of gaining and retaining political power. It is a significant deviation from the righteous meditations of Plato and Aristotle, which emphasise the goodness of human nature. Living in a harsh political climate, Machiavelli devised a more practical and true-to-life guide for leaders who cannot possibly be always good and just. For instance, he talks among other things about the importance to inflict pain all at once but distribute the rewards available gradually and in limited amounts. Besides, the idea that 'the ends justify the means' had never been featured in literature so prominently and openly before. Far-fetched at first glance, Machiavelli's insights after some analysis starts making practical sense when every state and society need to maintain one thing - stability.Although not idealistic, the text is undeniably valid as we can easily track the Prince's features in the best and the worst political leaders of the previous century who are united by the amount of power they were able to exerts - from political heroes such as Churchill and JFK to fascist and communist dictators. In the modern world, The Prince is a viable manual of conduct more than ever with the intense demand for competitiveness not only in the political but equally in business and other spheres.The text is also famous for being written in the vernacular rather than in classical Latin. What might surprise modern readers is that, actually, this peculiarity halted the text's dissemination across Europe as most translations were still done from Latin. The text nevertheless has reached its audience and become one of the most recognizable and accessible reads on politics and leadership.

»Der Fürst« (italienisch »Il Principe«), um 1513 von Niccolò Machiavelli verfasst, gilt als eines der ersten Werke der modernen politischen Philosophie. Stilistisch in der Tradition mittelalterlicher Fürstenspiegel stehend, formuliert es die modernen, vom moralischen und religiösen Vorstellungen losgelösten Grundsätze der Staatsraison. Zusammen mit den gleichzeitig entstandenen Discorsi stellt es das Hauptwerk Macchiavellis dar. Von ihm leitet sich sowohl der Begriff des Machiavellismus als auch der des Antimachiavellismus her.

Im Auftrag des Kardinals Giulio de Medici verfasste Machiavelli von 1521 bis 1525 seine Geschichte von Florenz, die den Zeitraum von der Gründung der Stadt bis zum Tode Lorenzos des Prächtigen abdeckt. Er schildert darin detailliert die Florentiner Innenpolitik sowie die zermürbenden Parteikämpfe zwischen Ghibellinen und Guelfen, Schwarzen und Weißen, Medici-Getreuen und Medici-Feinden. Sein geschichtsphilosophisches Fazit lautet: Nicht die Vervollkommnung der menschlichen Natur ist Sinn und Ziel der Geschichte, sondern allein der Zufall und der mutige Einsatz der Machtmittel entscheiden über den Lauf der Dinge.Der Text wurde komplett neu gesetzt und folgt der Ausgabe »Niccolo Machiavelli, Gesammelte Schriften«, Bd. 4, München 1925, herausgegeben von Hanns Floerke. Die Rechtschreibung wurde in manchen Fällen entsprechend der Alten Rechtsschreibungsregeln modernisiert. Offensichtliche Druckfehler wurden korrigiert. Einige Ortsnamen wurden der heutigen Schreibweise angepasst. Das Register wurde neu erstellt.

'The Prince' is a 16th-century political treatise written by Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Renaissance. It is the most well-known book on politics ever written and remains as vibrant and astonishing today as when it was written. The treatise is not representative of the work published during his lifetime, but it is the most recognized, and the work responsible for bringing 'Machiavellian' into wide usage as a pejorative term. It has also been suggested by some critics that the piece is, in fact, a satire. Originally denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, it has more recently been supported as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced. Widely cited in the press and in academic publications, it has direct applicability to the issues of business and corporate governance encountering global corporations as they enter a new millennium. Top 10 Hardcover Library Books: A Wrinkle in Time (9789389440188) How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (9789387669161) Their Eyes Were Watching God (9789389440577) The Magic of Believing (9789388118217) Zen in the Art of Archery (9789354990298) A Cloud by Day, a Fire by Night (9789391181611) Siddhartha by Hermann hesse (9789387669116) The Richest Man in Babylon (9789354990717) The Book of Five Rings (9789389440553) The Knowledge of the Holy (9789389157239) Note: Search by ISBN

The Prince is widely thought to be one of the first works of modern political philosophy. Machiavelli was the first to decisively divorce politics from ethics. His political realism influenced many important figures in the developing field of materialist philosophy, including Francis Bacon, John Milton, Spinoza, Rousseau, Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith. His treatise had a profound impact on political leaders throughout the modern west, including the founding fathers of the United States who, like Machiavelli, favored a republican form of government. Machiavelli emphasized the need for looking at the "effective truth" based on experience and historical fact, rather than theorizing about ideal republics or imaginary utopias. Controversial for advancing an amoral view of the world where any means are justified if they serve the ambitions of power, The Prince also ironically seems to undermine its own doctrine by predicting in some ways the doom of a strictly realist approach.