Prince was drafted by Nicholas Machiavelo in 1513 and published in 1532. It is a work in which the politics appears for the first time treated as a science. He raised an autonomous conception of politics as the centralized power, which he believed was the necessary element for progress.
Machiavelo, who during his life was a historian, writer, playwright, philosopher and politician, was born on May 3, 1469 in a patrician family in Florence, Italy. That same year Lorenzo de Medici (the Magnificent) took control and real power over the Florentine Republic that his family had held since the return of Cosme, the old, in 1434.
It is considered to Prince as a revolutionary work, as it helped to destroy some of the fundamental political ideas sustained since the middle ages, particularly those relating to restrictions on the powers of government and the moral basis of politics.
Machiavelo despised medieval thinking that the moral law limits the authority of the ruler and the conception of static society. Over its 26 chapters, Machiavelo proposed conditions that were to characterize a prince, understood this figure as the head or the head State.
For him, the supreme obligation of the ruler is to maintain power and the country''s security regardless of justice, mercy and sanctity of treaties. While the fund is a letter about the same State (Machiavelo came to think of holder the principality) The thesis that in developing the Italian writer did finally prevail identifying the concepts and State prince, while, if there was any relation between the two subordinate, it would benefit high dignitary rather than the political entity. That is the main idea postulated in the work: it must be the prince who, with his performance, model the essence of his principality.
Machiavelo exempted the rulers of the subject to rules issued by principles or morals or ethics. The ruling, he said, should not govern their actions by moral standards or from natural law, but must recognize themselves solely with the good of the state. For the same path, describes the method by which a ruler can acquire and maintain political power.
In this study, which has often been considered a defense of despotism and tyranny of leaders as Cesare Borgia, the author wonders whether it is better to be feared than loved, or vice versa. And the answer is that it offers would be both desirable, but it is very difficult as both are given at the same time, it is safer to be feared that a prince loved. In his view, the ruler should be concerned only by creating and sustaining power, and should only be surrounded by those who will ensure success in their political actions. Machiavelo believed that these rulers could be discovered by deduction, from the political practices of the time, as well as those of previous ages.
The justification of the means used to achieve the desired end gave the ''national interest'' matter of principle senior. The play is deeply determined by the historical context in which it was conceived. The political fragmentation that characterized the sixteenth century Italy became the need to require the performance of mighty statesmen, consolidate States strong and unified. For this reason, Machiavelo claimed the right of the ruler to aggressively pursue a foreign policy; war should become a basic tool of its foreign policy for the constitution of his principality.
In the latter regard, also outlined the importance in the organization of a State, must take his army, which, to be effective, should be composed of citizens themselves, and never by mercenary troops. This point is explained at length in his book on the art of war (1521), which describes the advantages of troops recruited off the armies hired. In short, Prince is a treaty basically utilitarian in nature, led by the assumptions of naturalism own that pervades certain currents of thought Renaissance and the assimilation of some aspects of the policy of Aristotle (that work, however, not declared Machiavelli having read) and latin thinkers. It had as inspiring models to Cesare Borgia, Ferdinand II and from the reality of his time, gave tips on how to govern better. He demonstrates the crisis of values pand a significant anthropological.revailing pessimism For strange as it may seem, this treatise on the art of politics presents ideas that remain valid today, nearly five centuries of its drafting and is a reference work required for each ruler wishing to interpret reality in a way appropriate and accurate .
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