Machiavellis highly influential treatise on political power The Prince shocked Europe on publication with its advocacy of ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality. Niccol Machiavelli drew on his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic rejecting traditional values of political theory and recognizing the complicated transient nature of political life. Concerned not with lofty ideal but with a regime that would last The Prince has become the bible of realpolitik and it still retains its power to alarm and to instruct. In this edition Machiavellis toughminded and pragmatic Italian is preserved in George Bulls clear unambiguous translation. For more than seventy years Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the Englishspeaking world. With more than 1700 titles Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors as well as uptodate translations by awardwinning translators. show more