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Introduction to the first extract of The Prince

鈥淚 will put the nation鈥檚 interests first. I will put principle before party. I will be open and honest. Thus do those seeking power today seek to persuade those that can confer it upon them that they are worthy of it - that they are, in short, different from most politicians.鈥�

How Machiavelli would laugh at this. He would know that, whatever they may say in public, politicians in this age, as in his own, examine, dissect and, yes even on occasions, celebrate the black arts of the political trade. In private and amongst consenting adults it is a crime to bury bad news only when you鈥檙e caught doing it. It is an error to do favours for your friends only when this is too blatant. It is wrong to seek to wound your enemy only when you are seen to do it too gleefully. Governments wouldn鈥檛 survive long if they were as politically chaste as electorates and even the media now demand. Call this cynicism. Call it realism, Call it wickedness.

That is the debate that has raged ever since The Prince was written almost five centuries ago. It is, first and foremost, a pocket 鈥淗ow to鈥︹�� guide to the gaining and retaining of power for any prince - any political leader. It is full of insights - both shrewd and amoral - about how to surf the waves of public opinion and how to defeat enemies whether on the battlefield or in the struggle for popular support.

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote his most famous work almost five centuries ago when he was 44 years old. The context - constantly warring Italian states - now seems alien and distant but the insights themselves can often seem relevant to today. The book embodies the knowledge he said he had gained 鈥渙f the deeds of great men鈥�. That knowledge encompassed both the good - he鈥檇 had an illustrious career as an ambassador and a politician for Florence - and the bad - he鈥榙 been wrongly accused of conspiracy leading to his arrest, torture, imprisonment and exile.

It was whilst in exile that he wrote the work that would bring him both notoriety and longevity. It led Shakespeare to dub him the 鈥淢urderous Machiavelli鈥� and others to give him the satanic nickname 鈥淥ld Nick鈥�. Within a generation the Pope had placed The Prince on the Catholic Church鈥檚 list of 鈥榤ost banned books鈥�.

And yet, over the centuries that followed, leaders of men treasured their copies. Oliver Cromwell owned a manuscript copy; Napoleon took his edition to the Battle of Waterloo and Adolf Hitler claimed to keep a copy on his bedside table.

Many of those who spoke ill of the man and his work have never actually read it. Few too of those who speak of others as Machiavellian - a description which is rarely meant to be flattering.

Introduction to the second extract of The Prince

Politicians, it is fashionable to say, 鈥渁re all the same鈥�. They put themselves first and think of the people last. They are, it is said with alarming frequency, greedy, lazy and self-interested. What we hear much less frequently is what they - our leaders - really think of you - those whom they lead.

Sure, we take for granted that those who want your support tell us that we are the finest, the fairest, the truest people on the globe but what do they really think? Niccolo Machiavelli鈥檚 The Prince - a kind of 鈥淜now your facts鈥� primer on how to wield power - made his view very plain. So plain indeed that the great English historian, , claimed that it was impossible to read the book without 鈥渉orror and amazement. Such a display of wickedness, such cool judicious scientific atrocity belongs鈥�, Macaulay wrote, 鈥渢o a fiend rather than to the most depraved of men鈥漙

You are about to hear what appalled Macaulay so. You will hear Machiavelli describe men as 鈥渦ngrateful and inconstant, simulators and dissimulators, hungry for profit and quick to evade danger鈥�. Harsh but fair some might say coming from a man who was writing in middle age after enjoying first great power and prestige and then wrongful imprisonment, torture and exile.

Macaulay was no sentimentalist. His recommendation to princes that they must learn how to be able not to be good and that it is better for them to be feared than loved and better to be mean than generous won him the condemnation of a church that declared such views to be opposed to Christian doctrine.

Before you join in the condemnation look out for insights into the popular mood which hold true still - that as Machiavelli says 鈥渢he common people will be convinced by appearances鈥� that generosity by the state can only follow parsimony鈥� that leaders who are seen as undependable are contemptible鈥�

If you are nevertheless shocked by Machiavelli鈥檚 contempt for the people, ponder a little about how common it is for people to hold their leaders in contempt.

Introduction to the third extract of The Prince

In our time, in our part of the world, war is a political choice鈥� a choice, as it happens, that our leaders have taken many times in recent years 鈥� in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Bosnia and Sierra Leone and before that the Falklands. The image of the successful war leader has an enduring appeal for modern politicians and, yes, for the public as well.

In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that a leader must have 鈥渘o other thought or objective, nor dedicate himself to any other art, but that of war鈥�. The future leaders he wrote it for had little choice. What would become the country of Italy was still a collection of warring city-states. What鈥檚 more Florence, Genoa, Venice, Siena and the other duchies were pawns in the rivalry between the Papacy, France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire.

Machiavelli wrote The Prince - part as a textbook for leaders, part as a job application - drawing on his own experiences which include having led an army. I suspect that Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair might well agree with the sentiment, in this the third extract of The Prince, that it is always better to be a true friend or a true enemy than to remain neutral. The irresolute Prince, he writes, will most often come to ruin. Wisdom consists of choosing the lesser evil.

Machiavelli had once been the chief military adviser to the leader of the Florentine Republic. In 1508, five years before he wrote The Prince, Machiavelli led a thousand troops in an effort to recover Pisa. He succeeded where before others had failed thanks, he believed, to the use of a loyal, indigenous militia of citizens and not, as his predecessors had done, with a mercenary army.

When triumph was soon followed by disaster - the Republic fell, Machiavelli was sacked, seen as a conspirator, imprisoned, tortured and exiled - he had the time to reflect and to write about what he鈥檇 learnt.

Introduction to the fourth extract of The Prince

What place does cruelty have in a leader鈥檚 tool box? None, many will reply but by no means all. In a recent poll, a quarter of all Britons said that torture could sometimes be permissible in the treatment of terrorist suspects. The figure is over a third in the United States - a country where the acceptability of water-boarding - pouring water onto a prisoner鈥檚 face so that they feel like they鈥檙e drowning - is a live issue in the race to replace George Bush.

Niccolo Machiavelli was in no doubt. Cruelty could be well used by princes as well as used badly. It was another of his apparently amoral views that led him and his work, The Prince, to become so notorious.

Machiavelli knew that of which he wrote having himself been imprisoned and tortured after the Florentine Republic fell in 1513. When the returned to power in Florence, he was wrongly accused of taking part in an assassination plot against them.

He was subjected to a device called the strappado. This involved binding his arms behind his back with a rope attached to a pulley, and then dropping him from a height so that his shoulders were dislocated. In prison, he wrote a poem about hearing the sound of other men鈥檚 torture, about the smell and the lice.

And yet, he was in no doubt that cruelty was necessary to keep the people in order recalling approvingly the example of who appointed 鈥渁 resolute and ruthless man鈥� to quell the people of one state and then had the same man cut in two in the main square to appease the people.

Small wonder that one commentator observed at the time, 鈥淓veryone hated him because of The Prince; the good thought him sinful, the wicked thought him more wicked than themselves, so that all hated him.鈥�

Introduction to the fifth extract of The Prince

Advisers advise. 鈥淢inisters decide鈥�, Margaret Thatcher famously said in a put down to one out-of-control adviser.
The public though have always had their doubts choosing to believe that Sir Humphreys did really control Jim Hacker. Beyond fiction the same was said to be true of Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair; Dick Morris and Bill Clinton; Karl Rove and George Bush.

Five centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli fuelled the idea of the adviser as the power behind the throne. The Prince was the distillation of the wisdom he鈥檇 gained over many years as a political, military and diplomatic adviser. Naturally this prince of advisers had a great deal to say about how advisers should be treated. As we shall soon hear, he believed that they should be honoured and made rich. In those days that advice did not carry the dangers it does now!

At the end of the long list of good advice which Machiavelli sought to dispense was how to deal with fortune both good and bad. He had seen more than his fair share of both having risen high and then sunk low when imprisoned, tortured and banished. His advice was that whilst Fortune and God may be the arbiter of half, or even perhaps a little more, of our actions the other half is left for free will to prevail,. This is one of the few mentions in the Prince - a book which shows that Machiavelli believes in the value of human foresight rather than divine providence.

This final extract ends with a plea to the man the Prince was written for - Lorenzo de Medici who Machiavelli hoped would lead Italy back to greatness. This was not Lorenzo the Magnificent, but his grandson who, far from being magnificent is described by historians as arrogant, inept, an imbecile and a buffoon. He was not impressed by Machiavelli`s gift of The Prince, expressing more gratitude for a couple of hounds he was given at the same time.

History judges the book of rather more value than the hounds although it was not until after Machiavelli鈥檚 death that The Prince was published.

Its author is buried in the church of Santa Croce in Florence, a few steps from the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo. The marble monument carries the legend TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM. 鈥淣o elegy is equal to such a name.鈥�