Featured This Month
We've made our picks of the Five Best Works of Fiction of the Last 25 Years. These you simply MUST read.
Our June 2001 Fiction & Non-Fiction Picks of the Month. Hey, not all bestsellers are trash!
Agent 007, deconstructed in Licence to Thrill
The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel
How to Be A Gentleman, a guide for the totally clueless
Just our kind of self-help book:The Machiavellian's Guide to Womanizing
Read The
48 Laws of Power
and take over
the world
The 48 Laws Of Power
By Robert Greene and Joost Elffers
Penguin Books
Reviewed by Shawn Rahman
Modern self-help books cater to the romantic idealist in all of us. The idea that we can read books or listen to tapes to better ourselves, aside from being a bit simplistic, is more than merely appealing - it is a multi-billion dollar industry. There are self-help books for every type of ailment, irregularity, malady, etc. - everything from weight loss to aromaherapy to those famed Idiot's Guides to Everything, it seems everyone, including your mother, has written one, and for the most part, these books tend to have all the lasting impact of a single snowflake.
However, one such book making great waves is Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power. Published in hardcover last year and recently released in paperback, the book appeals to our darker, more cunningly ruthless side. This is not the typical self-help hogwash in any sense. Those looking for the fuzzy, Chicken Soup for The Soul type perspective are in for quite a shock - this book is the antithesis of the toothless self-help establishment. It's simple premise and the message it delivers is in the title itself: If power has a user's manual, this is it. Instead of extolling the merits of such mundane virtues such as trust and compassion, Greene's premise is simple - acquire as much power as possible in any means possible, whether it is gained by stealth, power games, or outright acts of aggression.
A sampling of Greene's "laws" of power:
Law
1: Never Outshine the Master.
Law 3: Conceal your Intentions.
Law 9: Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument.
Law 20: Do Not Commit to Anyone.
Law 25: Re-Create Yourself.
Law 30: Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless.
Law 33: Discover Each Man's Thumbscrew.
Law 37: Create Compelling Spectacles.
Law 42: Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep Will Scatter.
Law 46: Never Appear too Perfect.
The laws that Greene outlines taken from history's own pages. Each of the laws is well illustrated by outlining the principles of the great many schemers the world has known, ranging from the likes Machiavelli and Napoleon to lesser-known connivers like Henry Kissinger and Queen Elizabeth. In this way, the structure of the book is perhaps its strongest point. It is designed as a reference work, made more for browsing than for studious, start-to-finish reading. In what is perhaps the book's most vital self-help attribute, its structure allows you to skip right to the law most pertinent to you. As an important added benefit, Greene has filled the book with quotes and anecdotes that further illustrate the individual laws. Collectively, these would have, by themselves, made for an interesting book.
As mentioned before, those expecting a warm-milk-and-cookies, inner-peace type of self-help book are likely to be put off by a book of such haughtiness. Are such things as stealth, mercilessness, and control to be considered virtues? Greene thinks so, and illustrates his points with case after case in history where each of these attributes (and more) has been put to great use and advantage. "No one wants less power, everyone wants more," writes Greene in the preface. And, page after page, he goes on to prove his point.
Greene goes on to say, "Learning the game of power requires a certain way of looking at the world, a shifting of perspective." The laws outlined in his book all "have simple premises: certain actions always increase one's power ... while others decrease it and even ruin us." Laws such as "Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit," and "Pose as a friend, work as a spy" are amoral to be sure, but also deceptively simple in their practicality. This book teaches us the necessary tactics of one-upmanship so vital to daily life, and does it better than any published work in recent memory.
It is also a remarkably original and entertaining piece of work.
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