On Pain of Death: Mad Machiavelli

The Prince

Book Review by Margaret

Niccolo Machiavelli

Rating: 6/10

Date read: 24 May to 8 June

The Prince was written in 1513 by Niccoló Machiavelli, an Italian diplomat and political theorist. It is intended to be an instructional guide for those in power, namely, princes. It is perhaps well known for its controversial theory that sometimes a prince would have to commit immoral, even cruel acts, in order to have a successful rule.

I read this book out of pure curiosity, and while some of the subject matter was new and interesting to me, I can’t say much of it seemed very likely. I’m no political theorist, but I do have a fair bit of common sense, and much of what Machiavelli claimed here seemed to be a bit far-fetched. Indeed, I would actually go so far as to call some of the principles suggested by Machiavelli as morally outrageous. ‘Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than to be loved’. What would this mean for a society? Yes, Machiavelli intends these principles to be used by rulers, not ordinary people, but how can you expect your ruler to follow principles which do not apply to you? Thus, if everyone went around trying to be feared because ‘love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage', but ‘fear preserves you by a dread of punishment that never fails’, society would collapse! Everyone would hate each other and there would be bitterness and despair everywhere. And this is only one of the appalling ideas Machiavelli discusses in this book.

It must also be admitted that there is also a thread of truth in some of what Machiavelli says. ‘The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him’ certainly seems true, but I still don’t think I could believe Machiavelli was very intelligent, no matter what men were around him. Machiavelli's view of violence, deception, punishment, scheming and war as casual tools of gaining power seems, at the very least, like a red flag. My rating of this book may seem surprisingly high, given my opinion of it, but although I did not think the book was very helpful or very true, I still enjoyed it. It was fairly engaging and provided a lot of food for thought. I would recommend it, purely on the grounds of fresh subject matter to consider.

The Incredible Life of Machiavelli, Author of 'The Prince'

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