Even if you have no intention of following all 48 of Greene’s maxims, this is an incredibly useful read for dealing with ambition and competition. A classics major turned screenwriter who claims to have worked at over 80 different jobs, Greene uses fascinating historical examples to illustrate how well-known badasses like Michelangelo and Al Capone used many of these laws to their own advantage. All that ruthlessness definitely sets Greene’s tough-love playbook apart from more softhearted self-help guides, but he balances his cutthroat rules with loads of practical tips, like being suspicious of free lunches (Law 40), knowing when to slow down (Law 47), and the importance of making bold decisions (Law 28).

Or Law 7, which advises you to take credit for other people’s work. Like Law 15, which is all about crushing your enemies. Robert Greene’s megabestseller is a thorough how-to guide for success by any means necessary-and some of its pointers are intense. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.Įverything you’ve heard about this book is true. Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling” and “fascinating,” Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature.

The laws of power book