The 48 Laws of Power is designed to make the process of Power more accessible to conscious reflection, to make us more and more aware of the underlying causes for our changes in fortune. Today, acquiring power depends on our ability to work with and cleverly control others, all within the boundaries of acceptable social behaviour. In the past power could be taken with violence and brute force.

Is the producer of Penguin Studio's bestselling The Secret Language of Birthdays, The Secret Language of Relationships, and of Play with Your Food. He is also a playwright and lives in Los Angeles. Has a degree in classical studies and has been an editor at Esquire and other magazines. Whether your interest is conquest, self-defense, or simply being an educated spectator. All of the 48 laws provide an understanding of the strategies used by others, the tactics to avoid or to live by.Īt work, in relationships, on the street, or on the 6 o'clock news: These laws apply everywhere. Each requires discipline (Law 48: Assume Formlessness), and many demand the total absence of mercy (Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally). They teach the need for prudence (Law 1: Never Outshine the Master), the virtue of stealth (Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions), the power of seduction (Law 43: Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others). Barnum, and many others who have wielded - or been victimized by - power. In a bold and elegant text, cleverly laid out in black and red and replete with fables and unique word sculptures, the laws are illustrated through the tactics, triumphs, and failures of such figures as the savvy Queen Elizabeth I, the statesman Henry Kissinger, the showman P. And when the lambs whisper among themselves, 'These birds of prey are evil, and does this not give us a right to say that whatever is the opposite of a bird of prey must be good?' there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such an argument - though the birds of prey will look somewhat quizzically and say, 'We have nothing against these good lambs in fact, we love them nothing tastes better than a tender lamb.' There is nothing very odd about lambs disliking birds of prey, but this is no reason for holding it against large birds of prey that they carry off lambs.

Those who now smile upon and embrace, would affront and stab, each other, if manners did not interpose.

Here are some of the sources by the statesmen, warriors, poets, philosophers, and historians of power.Ĭourts are, unquestionably, the seats of politeness and good-breeding were they not so, they would be the seats of slaughter and desolation. Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, The 48 Laws of Power is a practical, readable synthesis of three thousand years of the history of power.

I never read the 48 laws