The Prince
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers with Finnish reading ability who want to read a classic political text directly in translation
- Finnish-speaking students of the history of political thought who need to engage with a translation of The Prince
- General readers interested in the workings of power and political realism who are willing to read critically
- Researchers comparing translations across languages and attending to how concepts are rendered
Not a good fit for
- Readers without Finnish reading ability who can only read Chinese or English translations
- Beginners expecting a systematic textbook of political theory
- Readers who treat the book as a collection of moral or managerial maxims and seek direct action guidelines
Reading tips
- Learn about the sixteenth-century Italian political landscape before reading the main text to avoid misreading it out of context
- After each chapter, summarize the argument in your own words and note where it conflicts with contemporary political ethics
- Compare with translations of The Prince in other languages to observe differences in how key terms are rendered
- After finishing, write a short review distinguishing the author's judgments of his time from the political principles you endorse
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
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- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
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- 11
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FAQ
Is this book in Chinese or Finnish?
Can I understand The Prince without a background in political science?
Why are there different language translations of the same book?
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About the author
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was an important political thinker and writer of the Italian Renaissance, though public sources offer only limited details of his life. He is best known for The Prince, a coolly direct treatise on how a ruler acquires and keeps power, a work that has long provoked fierce debate; Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius draws on Roman history to explore republican government and political virtue. He also wrote comedies such as La mandragola and historical works including History of Florence, showing a range that spans politics, history, and literature. The library holds eight of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth, and his unsentimental, pragmatic style has had a lasting influence on later political writing.
