The cultural atmosphere important

This book has lived so long as a work of political advice that most people don’t know the background it came out of.

Basically a playwright who wrote critical works about the government is pushed into exile and writes this book to the son of the man who exiled him when that son takes power. This would be like John Steward or John Oliver or Trevor Noah writing a book called ‘The President’ and listing all the things that bush, bush W and trump did as right and mocking everything done by Clinton and Obama.

Or take the book with a grain of salt and look for the double meanings as you listen. As such a work it holds well against the test of time.

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2 people found this helpful

Informative

A must read if you plan on taking over a small nation with your army. For the rest of us, either an look into the political history of a time long past, or that book your teacher is making you write a report on.

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A must read...

...simply a must read for any young man. I will make sure my son reads it.

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Interesting listen

Good performance,
The story is slightly behind the times from an ethical moral perspective
However, some applicable lessons with regards to leadership
#Audible1

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Interesting read

It felt like taking a trip back in time and seeing the world through his eyes.

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Short and cheap time portal into the political past.

I am going through the free Yale course on political philosophy on iTunes.

There’s a lesson on Machiavelli. I’ve of course heard of Machiavelli, first from a 2pac song, then through random quotes like “absolute power corrupts absolutely” - but I’ve never previously thought to read any of his works.

The Prince is an easy to digest work, and I’m glad I finally listened to it.

I sometimes wonder if it’s worth listening to these ancient philosophers and trying to apply any of their thoughts to modern days, since they were all typically so masochistic & sexist against women.

They also brush over slavery as if it is a normal thing.

Maybe there’s some things we can pull out of their teachings - but how can you really listen to someone’s knowledge who has slaves and treats his wife like a servant?

In many parts of the world, this stuff still happens - so if anything it’s a window into the less socially civilized & progressive parts of the modern world.

Some good quotes though, I’m sure anyone can find some words of wisdom in here to apply to their own philosophy.

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I need to find a modern translation of this book.

Having listened to a book on Leonardor daVinci I was somewhat familiar with the characters and historic events referred to by Machiavelli unfortunately more often than not I got lost in the prose. Odd that "The Art of War" written much earlier translated many times over is a much easier listen.

I'm not being critical of the narrator or the book just my choice of the translation.

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couldnt make it past the first 30 minutes

the combination of the writing and narration was painful to listen to. the writing style is dated and difficult to keep up with but the narration doesnt help either. I felt like I was listening to an actor in a play rather than an audiobook. I'm personally would choose to read the book rather than listen

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