The Prince  (Hardcover, Niccolò Machiavelli)

THE PRINCE (Italian: Principe [ˈprintʃipe]; Latin: De Principatibus) is a 16th-century political treatise written by Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli as an instruction guide for new princes and royals. The general theme of THE PRINCE is of accepting that the aims of princes such as glory and survival can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends. Although THE PRINCE was written as if it were a traditional work in the mirrors for the prince’s style, it was generally agreed as being especially innovative. This is partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice that had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and other works of Renaissance literature. THE PRINCE is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the "effectual" truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It is also notable for being in direct conflict with the dominants and scholastic doctrines of the time, particularly those concerning politics and ethics. In subject matter, it overlaps with the much longer Discourses on Livy, which was written a few years later. In its use of near-contemporary Italians as examples of people who perpetrated criminal deeds for politics, another lesser-known work by Machiavelli to which THE PRINCE has been compared is the Life of Castruccio Castracani.