Principality

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, is a political treatise/non-fiction book written as a guide for how to be an effective ruler. Machiavelli intends to guide rulers on how to seize a country and how to destroy an enemy. He writes about rulers of his time and the things they did well and did not do so well. His purpose was to right a book to advise the aristocracy in what they should do to rule effectively so government would be run in the way his mind pictured it. He told the world the truth…

his arguments by referencing historical examples and using metaphors. One of the most prominent themes of The Prince is fortune. When speaking of fortune, Machiavelli is referring to luck, fate, or chance. He applies this concept to princes and principalities. Fortune can be either useful or advantageous, or it can be harmful or dangerous. Machiavelli believes that fortune controls half of one's life and the other half is controlled by one's own talent.Machiavelli argues that someone can gain…

as the dominant power of Europe must be credited to the sheer genius tactics of Cardinal Richelieu. At first glance, the expected response from France was that it would aid the Hapsburgs in eliminating Protestant forces rising in the Germanic Principalities, yet Richelieu led France to side with the Protestants in order to combat against the unbalanced power of the Hapsburgs. Because he set the religion of the state aside to pursue political interests, Richelieu evidently stands out as a…

The first major theme is principalities/ powers and fortune. In the first few chapters of The Prince, Machiavelli had mentioned principalities and powers a couple of times in his writing. Therefore, I believed that principalities of the prince and how the powers are held and kept to rule over men are important concepts throughout this book. Nonetheless, there are ability and…

Although Machiavelli and Socrates both lived during times of uncertainty, political fragmentation and violence, their philosophies about how the state should conduct itself are in direct contrast with one another. Machiavelli’s the Prince is founded on the principal that if a ruler wishes to maintain power, he should embody the ideology of pragmatism, while Socrates believes the state should follow him in his commitment to moral purity and justice. The inherent dissonance between these…

benefit of an individual, Machiavelli argued the use of such underhanded tactics only for rulers in order to strengthen their holdings. The Prince is meant to be a handbook to establish the proper code of conduct for a ruler of a state, nation, or principality. It advocates a new political, social, and moral value structure that relies almost solely on ruthless logic, and encourages the use of measures that would be considered extreme or even brutal by the Christian value structure in 16th…

Europe to the Western Asia and the Northern Africa. The ascension or the rise of the Ottoman Empire to the power started mainly in the 14th century. The empire originated as a single state with over a dozen Anatolian principalities, which arose altogether…

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” Machiavelli uses this analogy as an attempt to teach the masses how to embrace their human significance. Machiavelli wrote The Prince at a time where there was political unrest and confusion in Italy, which is why it can be interpreted in many different ways, such as a political satire or epilogue of his political views;…

This concept is very peculiar. Order is not necessarily built on good values or the truth. It is of quintessence that a prince or leader should lead a deceitful life. Deception is the basis for preserving the principality and order. The moment the truth comes out, the moment the people see that their freedom has been taken away, as in the case the Syrians with Bashar Al-Assad, as will be illustrated later on, order falls, and disorder replaces it. Building on the…

“They hated us” (p. 340). This became the cry of one eyewitness whom was unfortunately involved within the Cambodian Genocide. The genocide took place within the years of 1975-1979 under the ruler Pol Pot. Pol Pot lived within the region land of Cambodia and grew up as a working peasant, and was well liked during his youth by those within his country. Pol Pot also studied the ideology of Marxism during his youth and realized that under this ideology, his homeland could drive out those whom he…