Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince

Niccolo Machiavelli would not have written the Prince if his life were any different. He was born in Florence, Italy in 1469. In 1494 he became an Italian diplomat for the city of Florence. He served while the medici family, who were a wealthy bankers who had high political power in Florence, were in exile. One of Machiavelli’s duties included his creation and maintenance of the Florentine militia whom he created because of his lack of trust of militia’s. However, with help from Pope Julius II the medici family defeated the militia at Prato. However, after the Medici gained power machiavelli was dismissed from his political duties. He was tortured “by the rope” in which you hang from bound wrists behind your back dislocating your soldiers. …show more content…
By everything he includes actions that disregard all moral and ethical standards. Or more simply “The ends always justify the means.” However, it should be the moral and ethical ends always justifies the immoral and unethical means. For example, a captain of a sinking submarine should close the flooded compartment even if a member of the crew is in that cabin. Yes, the captain may have unethically killed one of his comrades, but it was for the survival of the whole crew, or moral ends. But in politics the ends are usually disagreed on. Therefore, the morality cannot be determined until times are bad and a new ends need to be achieved. Therefore, a successful politician should follow the ideals of the prince but if the public majority disagrees with the ends his work would be reset. Throughout this book he speaks of a fine line acts committed by men and beasts. The most successful princes using tactics by both in reference to lawful and forceful actions. And in keeping principalities one must be extremely cunning in politics to hide his means. By being feared but not hated and using force when necessary and keeping balance between satisfying the nobles need to oppress and citizens need to not be oppressed are just a taste of what machiavelli believes. Furthermore Machiavelli does not only speak of ways to keep …show more content…
For, they are timely examples relevant to the people of the books publishing date. But still as not completely understanding the support to the claim his thesis should be taken with a grain of salt in todays world. While agreeing on a vast majority of this book and disagreeing with a select minority I find that large amounts of this book is beneficial to history students. One way it is valuable to history students is for its information on politics in general. Especially, with voting season coming up in the next year or so. History students can learn from this book that politicians will go by any means to reach their desired ends. In ancient times their ends were power in the form of land or wealth. However, In today's environment their motivation is also power in the form of wealth Therefore, Machiavellian theories could still widely be used today by politicians to obtain and keep office. It is not hard for anyone to search and see what the majority believe in in politics. In fact, legislature votes are deemed public records so it would not be hard at all to see who the people favor. Furthermore, this is valuable to historians because it will make them think twice about what politicians stand for. It also makes people see the purely pragmatic side of horrible situations. To make a seemingly