The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (1513)

The core question about this book is...which came first? Machiavellianism or expediency? I come firmly down on the side of the latter. It seems to me that Machiavelli simply put political necessity as it was then understood into words. The other crucial point being that that necessity had probably had this face for a few hundred years, and had had more or less like ones since human political thought began. I don't find it all that illuminating, and put that down to one of two things: either I'm a 'natural' Machiavellian (! - watch out those enemies) or he doesn't write particularly convincingly or excitingly about the topic. There are also a lot of misfires locked away in this old text - all sorts of self-contradictions. It could be seen as an amateur attempt, both in a good and a bad way. Having said all that, there are mildly interesting things littered through it, if the reader is not particularly well-versed in Italian history, as I am not. Warlike popes and intrigue in powerful families, and all the mechanisms of the management of power have an innate interest.