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The 48 Laws of Power
Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature In the book that…
- Release Date
- 2000
- Length
- 497 pages
- Publisher
- Penguin
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Our Review
About the book
Robert Greene distills strategies for gaining and keeping power into forty-eight laws, each illustrated with historical examples from courtiers, generals, con artists and statesmen. Every law includes cases of it being observed and violated.
Our review
Machiavelli remixed for the modern office, endlessly quotable and morally slippery in equal measure.
There is a reason this book still circulates in boardrooms, locker rooms and recording studios. Greene is a terrific anthologist of historical intrigue, and the book’s design, with its sidebars, reversals and bite-size laws, makes centuries of scheming feel immediate. As a survey of how manipulation actually works, it is illuminating, and reading it can make you far better at recognizing when someone is playing you.
The problem is what it encourages beyond recognition. Many laws reward deceit, coldness and exploiting others, and the book rarely weighs the personal or relational costs of living that way. Some laws contradict one another, and the historical anecdotes are selected to fit rather than tested. Read as a cynical history lesson it is entertaining and useful. Read as a life manual, it can make a person both less trustworthy and less happy.
What we loved
- Rich, entertaining historical anecdotes on every page
- Helps readers spot manipulation and power plays
- Clever format with counterexamples and reversals
Keep in mind
- Amoral advice that can corrode relationships if followed literally
- Laws often contradict each other and rely on cherry-picked history
Read it if you like
Readers of Machiavelli’s The Prince, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, or Greene’s own The 33 Strategies of War.
The verdict
A vivid tour of historical power games; valuable as defense, risky as a playbook.
