num_pages: 452
description: Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills three thousand years of the history of power in to forty-eight well explicated laws. As attention-grabbing in its design as it is in its content, this bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers. Some laws teach the need for prudence ("Law 1: Never Outshine the Master"), the virtue of stealth ("Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions"), and many demand the total absence of mercy ("Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally"), but like it or not, all have applications in real life. Illustrated through the tactics of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissinger, P. T. Barnum, and other famous figures who have wielded--or been victimized by--power, these laws will fascinate any reader interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.
language: English
title: The 48 Laws of Power
titlecomplete: The 48 Laws of Power
characters: Henry Kissinger, Muhammad Ali, Xerxes I of Persia, Arthur Schopenhauer, Marie Antoinette, Leo Tolstoy, Otto von Bismarck, Marcus Antonius, Robin Hood, Henry David Thoreau, Pancho Villa, Stonewall Jackson, Rembrandt van Rijn, Attila the Hun, J. Edgar Hoover, Louis XV of France, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Oliver Cromwell, George Sand, Gaspard de Coligny, Montesquieu, Themistocles, Cyrus the Great, Louis XIII of France, Cao Cao (general), Louis XVIII of France, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Richard Nixon, Pablo Picasso, Mary Queen of Scots, Thomas Edison, Al Capone, Bertolt Brecht, Niccolò Machiavelli, Moses, Erwin Rommel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Dante Alighieri, Walter Raleigh, Philip II of Macedon, Oscar Wilde, Charles Darwin, Alcibiades, Galileo Galilei, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Ivan the Terrible, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Fouché, Francis Bacon (philosopher), Andy Warhol, Plutarch, Woodrow Wilson, Maximilien Robespierre, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Cosimo II de'Medici, Duke of Tuscany, Frederick William IV of Prussia, Frédéric Chopin, Catherine de Medici, Richard Wagner, Aeschylus, Aristotle (philosopher), J. P. Morgan, J.M.W. Turner, Nelson Rockefeller, Louis XIV of France, Diego Velázquez, Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XVI of France, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Pynchon, Christopher Wren, Madame de Pompadour, Thucydides, Constantine the Great, Odysseus, Genghis Khan, Louis XI of France, Tennessee Williams, Ptolemy Philadelphus, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Michel de Montaigne, Klemens von Metternich, Christopher Columbus, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Cardinal Richelieu, Philip II of Spain, Pericles, Yellow Kid, Pietro Aretino, Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent), Oedipus, Pope Clement VII, Cleopatra, Tom Thumb, Molière, Baldassare Castiglione
genres: Business, Leadership, Politics, Philosophy, Psychology, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Self Help, Personal Development, History
ratings_count: 133809
publisher: Penguin Books