William Rice Hist 1002 12/4/14 Book Report The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy in the mid 1400’s, he grew up in the middle class and received a standard education as did many of the middle class of his era. The big factor that would have contributed to the writing of his book was that he went through the expulsion of the Medici family from his home town in Florence. Also this whole time period is just a huge political mess for Italy with many nations trying to pull the strings of the Italian cities and use them for the own whims. Later on in his life at just about the turn of the century Machiavelli enters the Florentine government, and He was …show more content…
Machiavelli really is just setting the scope of what he plans to cover, then he continues on to explain how to maintain a principality and how to retain ones prince hood. The Next portion of the book from chapter five to 8 describes many different ways to become a prince, through ways stated as either through one’s ability, fortune or through others ability. Machiavelli goes through all this and states that a principality established by one’s own ability is typically the best in any scenario, but still he describes the flaws of each way, what is most likely to go wrong and of course he uses stone cold, straight up, no non sense logic to explain the ways to rule. He also in chapter describes the story of Agathocles the king of Syracuse who acquired his rule through crime, as Machiavelli states men who gain principality through evil means, and as expected he explains deeper about the hardships he faces to maintain but how the power he acquired was enough to suppress the attempts to overthrow him. Mostly the rest of the book explains the ins and outs of what to do and what not to do, Machiavelli is just touching all the major points; he describes the military and what the prince should do with it, what kind of troops to use and what kind of force to use on his own people. He …show more content…
One of the most evident instances of Louis ignoring Machiavelli’s principles was when he states that it is better to be considered a frugal leader because otherwise the subjects will bleed the treasury dry, it’s like saying you give an inch and they take a mile. Although that’s what Machiavelli says Louis XIV, builds Versailles the greatest palace of all and he also had many other public works and actually gave back quite a bit to the people, all of this made possible by the new idea of mercantilism but still he gave back quite a bit. Louis the XIV generally did follow the teachings of Machiavelli, to point out one obvious point was that Louis Handpicked his men to be sent out and settle unrest or whatever and maintain the royal influence all over France, and because his men were so close to him he directly could control any situation across France when it arose and also prevent a lot by having royal influence all over. This a prime example of Machiavelli in action he plain as day says that to be a good ruler you need loyal subjects but more importantly extremely loyal servants who can carry out the will of the king. All in All one can try to avoid the ideas of Machiavelli but if one wants to rule successfully
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy in the mid 1400’s, he grew up in the middle class and received a standard education as did many of the middle class of his era. The big factor that would have contributed to the writing of his book was that he went through the expulsion of the Medici family from his home town in Florence. Also this whole time period is just a huge political mess for Italy with many nations trying to pull the strings of the Italian cities and use them for the own whims. Later on in his life at just about the turn of the century Machiavelli enters the Florentine government, and He was …show more content…
Machiavelli really is just setting the scope of what he plans to cover, then he continues on to explain how to maintain a principality and how to retain ones prince hood. The Next portion of the book from chapter five to 8 describes many different ways to become a prince, through ways stated as either through one’s ability, fortune or through others ability. Machiavelli goes through all this and states that a principality established by one’s own ability is typically the best in any scenario, but still he describes the flaws of each way, what is most likely to go wrong and of course he uses stone cold, straight up, no non sense logic to explain the ways to rule. He also in chapter describes the story of Agathocles the king of Syracuse who acquired his rule through crime, as Machiavelli states men who gain principality through evil means, and as expected he explains deeper about the hardships he faces to maintain but how the power he acquired was enough to suppress the attempts to overthrow him. Mostly the rest of the book explains the ins and outs of what to do and what not to do, Machiavelli is just touching all the major points; he describes the military and what the prince should do with it, what kind of troops to use and what kind of force to use on his own people. He …show more content…
One of the most evident instances of Louis ignoring Machiavelli’s principles was when he states that it is better to be considered a frugal leader because otherwise the subjects will bleed the treasury dry, it’s like saying you give an inch and they take a mile. Although that’s what Machiavelli says Louis XIV, builds Versailles the greatest palace of all and he also had many other public works and actually gave back quite a bit to the people, all of this made possible by the new idea of mercantilism but still he gave back quite a bit. Louis the XIV generally did follow the teachings of Machiavelli, to point out one obvious point was that Louis Handpicked his men to be sent out and settle unrest or whatever and maintain the royal influence all over France, and because his men were so close to him he directly could control any situation across France when it arose and also prevent a lot by having royal influence all over. This a prime example of Machiavelli in action he plain as day says that to be a good ruler you need loyal subjects but more importantly extremely loyal servants who can carry out the will of the king. All in All one can try to avoid the ideas of Machiavelli but if one wants to rule successfully