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The 48 Laws of Power (Paperback)
by Robert Greene
| Category:
Power, Influence, Persuasion, Psychology |
| Market price: ¥ 198.00
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¥ 158.00
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Ever wanted to know why you are left behind? This powerful read on the dynamics of human power will enable you with insight and guidance. |
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Author: Robert Greene
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Pub. in: September, 2000
ISBN: 0140280197
Pages: 480
Measurements: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00551
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- Awards & Credential -
The National Bestseller (in North America) and one of the top sellers in books on Amazon.com (ranked # 103 as of November 23, 2006). |
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You need to know and be aware of how simple it is to hoodwink unsuspecting, good intentioned people. We are also given the mirror to review our own behavior. Today, we live in a society driven by sophisticated technology, complex social and economic structures. This book reviews and outlines how simple it is to be easily manipulated by those who are of more cunning and calculated mind. To discern the difference between genuine intentions and contrived, convoluted ulterior motives. The signs or red flag factors to watch for within organizations, family settings and religious affiliations are highlighted. These time honored techniques, skillfully employed by politicians, entertainers, religious cults and psuedo spiritual leaders are reviwed and divulged. We are reminded that history repeats itself again and again.
Note, this book is NOT found in the self-help, psychology sections of the book shelves. It is businesss all the way.
If you are going out into the world, be it business, politics, or personal persuits, it is wise to know the territory being ventured and exactly what techniques might be used against the unsuspecting you. In what manner one chooses to use the information remains a matter of personal integrity.
(From quoting Maureen Meccio, USA)
Target readers:
Especially good for business and other organization- centered people.
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The Art of Seduction
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Robert Greene has a degree in classical studies and is the author of The 48 Laws of Power.He is also a playwright. He lives in Los Angles. Joost Elffers is the producer of Viking Studio's bestselling The Secret Language of Birthdays, The Secret Language of Relationships, and Play with Your Food.
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From Kirkus Review:
Of the ways and means of power. Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world's greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,'' “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it's used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.'' More seriously, Greene never really defines ``power,'' and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn't. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project. If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it's a brilliant satire.
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| View all 15 comments |
Karl Mohd (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
As in other areas of life, the means of achieving power or influence over others is achieved not by honest or dis-honest means, but by a patient, rational evaluation of one's position relative to the negotiatee(s). In this book, Greene shows 48 different emotions and behavioral characteristics that take place in human interactions. Utilizing case histories from various political, military, business, and romantic travails in history, Greene gives ample support of the emotional balance one must play to maximize their power and results in life's different environmental interactions. |
Jason Deimos (MSL quote), India
<2007-01-11 00:00>
I have read this book twice, and I found it quite interesting. For most of us this book should provide good entertainment. Greene has provided a lot of examples from history to show the validity of the laws. Though this book is comprehensive, I doubt whether it will turn the layman into a master of manipulation. The fact is that this book is definitely relevant, and I recommend it because it will allow people who see only simple motives and are used to the usual human drives and emotions to see things that they probably never felt or experienced ever before. Still, as I have stated, you are not going to become a master just because you know how the elite manipulated the masses and their peers. The world today is more complex than it was ever in the past, and the level of awareness and intelligence of the average human are much higher today. More people are educated and their numbers are increasing globally every year. Every law is valuble, but only in the hands of the most creative person does it find its best use. It would, therefore, be exceedingly simplistic to assume that the same propaganda that worked on people ten years back is going to produce the desired effect today. More humans are catching on. They are learning faster and experimenting faster.
Techniques that were used successfully in the past are getting obsolete precisely because the people understand the ploys. Personally, I feel that only a very sophisticated amalgamation of the laws of power are going to work today, and only the very best will be successful in fooling the rest. Greene tells us that the virtuosos of power have a phenomenal mental dexterity that helps them in applying the laws successfully over long periods of time. One must realise that while the future is similar to the past, the future also presents several unique features. So do read the laws, but realise that the arena keeps changing. Success depends on understanding the arena and the level of intelligence of your adversaries, not by blindly applying the past to the present and the future. This book is definitely a good place to start understanding power. I would also recommend reading The Art of Seduction by the same author.
Finally, to those who say that this book is not a "real" guide to power, I would just like to say that in the market for books there is most probably not a single book that will reveal the true account of how manipulation is actually being done in the contemporary world. While they may offer sketchy glimpses, the crystal clarity will never be manifest to the layman. This is because the actual reality of such transactions is just too valuble to be provided openly for mass consumption. In fact those who really want to have power understand that nobody can or will - if the person did know - actually reveal the real deal about a profitable venture. Tell me how many people are publicly teaching techniques to get around the 128-bit- encryption barrier to thrash electronic security of top organisations? Do you actually think that reading a 500-page or 600-page book on power will actually qualify you to replace the top powerbrokers of the world? The best teacher for that is direct experience, and how much you understand will ultimately depend on your own ingenuity and perceptiveness.
I have read Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Shadow, and though it appears that the general opinion is that Ender's Game was Card's best book, I feel that it was Ender's Shadow - the story of Bean - that impressed me the most. In fact, Bean more than Ender is the bearer of brute creativity. Bean saw what the teachers were doing wrong and what they were doing right, while the rest of the children saw no wrong in the teachers' methods.I was really impressed by one of the notions that Bean expressed : he said that whenever he realised that the teacher was wrong he did not follow that idea even when the rest of the children accepted it. That way he became better than the other students, because while they followed without much thought what they had learned from the teachers, Bean only followed the option he reasoned was right. That was why he became more powerful than the rest, for he knew the right course of action. I think this questioning of every notion - perhaps the 49th law - is the backbone of every other law. |
Olayami (MSL quote), Nigeria
<2007-01-11 00:00>
Read this book and your thinking will never remain the same. Drawing upon historic examples that portray man's journey through the ages as one long, unending quest to dominate his fellows, The 48 Laws of Power reads somewhat like a much expanded version of Machiavelli's The prince. Yet it carries a lot of its own originality - on many levels. One interesting, innovative feature of this book can be found in the numerous illustrations and anecdotes appearing along the page margins that the writer uses to buttress his points. Quite educative, they provided me an easy opportunity to browse through and be acquainted with fascinating classic literature from Aesop's Fables down to Sun Tzu's The Art of war.
Can we refer to the 48 Laws as success literature? Some of Robert Greene's advice seems innocent enough: Never outshine the master; win through your actions, never through argument; concentrate your forces; enter action with boldness. These are tips you would find in any self-help book that should put anyone on a stronger footing in the workplace with their boss, with colleagues, or even within the curious context of a romantic relationship.
But there is a darker, more sinister side to the 48 Laws, a side that appears to be responsible for all the notoriety that surrounds this book. There are laws which, seeming to controvert themselves in some instances, advocate underhandedness and the practice of outright evil in the pursuit of one's ambitions. Reading The 48 Laws awakens a moral conflict within us and presents two philosophies that attend the attainment of power - one inspired by goodness and the other governed by guile. But I think it all depends on the kind of success you seek. To those that would stoop to guile I would point out that Robert Greene has neglected to include what perhaps might have been the first law: All that goes around comes around; you reap what you sow.
On the other hand, some of these laws that appear to advocate evil - taken in the right context, they shed their malicious intent and turn out to be very helpful, well-meaning principles. For instance, I agree with the thought “So much depends on your reputation - guard it with you life.” But I think my reputation rests, more than anything, on my character and commitment to whatever I do, and it is along these lines I will seek to guard it. Also, when I think of “Make other people come to you - use bait if necessary,” I tend to see it in the light of the principle that pronounces: The kind of person you are, to a large extent, determines the kind of people you will attract into your life. So I go about developing my `bait' - myself - in the best way I can. Fishing, as opposed to hunting, one success writer calls it.
An anecdote which fascinated me and which I kept returning to was one about Cosimo de Medici, the 15th Century Florentine banking magnate, who rode a mule instead of a horse and decidedly deferred to city officials, but effectively controlled government policy in Florence for decades. He spent a lot of his own funds on grandiose development projects across the city but preferred to live in a nondescript villa, and when he died asked to be buried in a simple tomb devoid of lavish ornamentation. Robert Greene uses Cosimo's example to illustrate a concept that is profound as it is though-provoking: the REALITY of power is much more important than the appearance of it. Unfortunately, most people tend to see it the other way.
On the whole, the 48 Laws awaken one to the on-going struggle for domination and control even in the most mundane transactions between humans. They insist that power is a reality, whether we like it or not. They impress upon us the thinking that, to survive in today's world, one has to become a man or woman of the world - at least, if not in one's actions, in one's awareness. For me, the 48 laws show one how to discern power-bids in relationships, how to read between the lines and scour the fine-print; how to recognize various inter-personal issues at stake in business and the workplace, navigating with panache and perceptiveness. They show one how to be `peaceful as a dove but wise as a serpent', how to `see the tricks coming', as another reviewer put it. Indeed, the 48 Laws seek to banish our innocence. And you'll agree...innocence, many times, can be a painful thing. |
Malcolm Orrall (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-11 00:00>
This book is a no holds barred open discussion of raw power, enter- tainingly presented. It took me a little while to get over the almost completely amoral tone of the book, but I eventually got the sense that the amoral tone is there for a purpose: to clue you in to the fact that people who practice power at this level can often be completely amoral themselves. In that sense, the book truly gives the reader a sense of the mindset of those who will do anything to stay in power. There is a sense as one reviewer pointed out, that the book could have been written without this amoral tone, but then one would miss out on the opportunity of being immersed in its sense of amorality, which is an education in itself. Experiencing the amorality is a wakeup call that offers insight into how some of the world's ills have come to pass, though you may find yourself wanting to shower afterward. After reading it, you will definitely be more aware of the laws being played out on the world stage, and you will begin to recognize people in government who seem to be using it as a playbook. Some laws are even applicable in personal relationships...a scary thought.
By reading this, you will get an overview of the major philosophical writings on power, who as sources likely include at the very least Machiavelli, Han Fei Tzu, and Sun Tzu, though the authors do not identify the sources of the material for each law. This is one thing I wish they had done. That would have made it more useful to those wishing to put these laws and their development into some kind of historical framework. The authors have done a nice job however of blending together into one seamless volume the writings of these philosophers, whose works are also written in this amoral tone.
One of the most intriguing and worthwhile aspects of the book, are the many historical vignettes that the authors paint of how each law of power has been implemented, along with how failure to follow the law can be one's undoing. It is like two books in one in that sense. Not only do you get an understanding of raw power, but you get a very entertaining history lesson as well. The authors are also very careful to point out exceptions to the laws, and how they may backfire, making it read like a very thorough treatment of the subject for general readership.
One particularly interesting vignette has vivid application for our current situation in the war on terror, wherein we find ourselves exposed by going it alone without a substantial alliance while the rest of the world looks on. The vignette concerns a law which states that in seeking to increase power, let your rival do your fighting for you. The authors discuss how Mao Tse Tung suggested he and his rival Chiang Kai Shek set aside their differences and form an alliance in order to defeat the Japanese in World War II. Chiang Kai Shek agreed. Mao then suggested Chiang send his army in first, promising that he would follow Chiang into action by sending his army in as replacements. Once Chiang Kai Shek's army was committed, Mao held his army in abeyance and let Chiang Kai Shek take a beating. Then when Chiang's army was weakened, Mao's army was able to defeat him and exile him to Taiwan.
The warning for our own national campaign in the war on terror is that hopefully we will not allow ourselves to dissipate our national resources and become foolishly weakened by going it alone at the same time as other rival countries are growing stronger at our expense. The grandiosity of thinking we can go it alone makes us vulnerable to even more severe threats by potentially predatory nations who pretend to be sympathetic now, but who secretly revel in watching us deplete our national will, our troops and our treasury.
The 48 Laws of Power is a fascinating read, though except for a few of the laws, I can't imagine how it could actually help the average person's career unless you were a political operative or someone who had already accumulated a lot of political power and were predisposed to bend towards the amoral. But to build background knowledge and be able to recognize shadowy abuses of power while learning a little interesting history, I heartily recommend it. |
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