The 48 Laws of Power
Ratings145
Average rating3.7
This book is a bunch of “laws” backed by one example in history where it worked out in someone's favor. The way it's written makes you feel like the author and everyone he mentions is a snake in the grass. The history examples are like the worst people. Powerful? I guess. But Henry the 8th, Machiavelli, Ivan the terrible, Christopher Columbus are all infamous for bad things.
As a stem girlie, the use of the word law is inaccurate but I guess they took a page from Schrödinger because some laws contradict other laws.
“The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene left me feeling disgusted. I only read half of the rules and couldn't finish it. The book's writing style felt manipulative and its emphasis on strategies for gaining power through manipulation was deeply unsettling. Instead of offering positive and ethical guidance, it seemed to glorify deceit and manipulation as tools for success. Greene's approach, filled with examples of cunning and exploitation, made me uncomfortable and conflicted. While it presents historical insights, its glorification of these darker aspects of human behavior made it a challenging and distasteful read for me.
If you follow these advices you will end up without anything of value. And you will be a bad person. Don't.
Not sure what to say about this one. I'm glad I read it. Really really glad. Also a good entrance into delving deeper instead of broader for me.
Revealed a lot to me about the (and this might come across as brazen) reasons I have been well liked, socially, throughout my life...as well as the reasons and ways I work to get what I want, and often fail. All that and why I sometimes don't manage to push through certain barriers (be that because of moral or ethical reasons or because it's just not a skill that comes naturally to me).
That said, the concept of ‘play or be played' seems to ring true; and regardless of how Machiavellian I plan to be in my future years, having a framework to understand and interpret other people's behaviour and how it may affect me seems pretty crucial, especially for the industry I am moving into.
I wish I read it though and didn't consume it as an audiobook. I would have benefited from having a physical location for all of the chapters and laws that I could keep flicking back to and building a visual reference of. Think I need to do some mental filing in order to preserve the goodness.
A bit dense, and some stories that definitely could have been left out....if you want to read it, maybe read the concise version.
& remember - grain of salt. Maybe that's why I didn't find this as ‘offensive' as some people do? Or maybe I spent too much time relating it to acting..anyway..
Very well written and interesting but a lot of the book has anecdotal evidence as opposed to scientific
I initially enjoyed this book, but further I listened the more realized that only small tidbits of the proposed “laws” can really be applied by the average person. No, it didn't make me “evil” or “immoral” or any other edgy term that others proclaim the book allowed them to be, maybe if I was more business savvy, but even then it's unlikely. The vignettes are very interesting, but by law 40 I found that the book had dragged on, overstayed its welcome with vaguely similar laws, without much of a concise point.
If you do ever listen to it, like I did, listen to the High Bridge version, since the narrator is perfect for the contents of the book.