The 48 Laws of Power

For your easy reference, the laws are:-
1. Never outshine the master
2. Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies
3. Conceal your intentions
4. Always say less than necessary
5. So much depends on reputation - guard it with your life
6. Court attention at all cost
7. Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit
8. Make other people come to use - use bait if necessary
9. Win thru your actions, neer thru argument
10. Infection: Avoid the unhappy and unlucky
11. Learn to keep people dependent on you
12. Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim
13. When asking for help, appeal to people's self interest, never to their mercy or gratitude
14. Pose as a friend, work as a spy
15. Crush your enemy totally
16. Use absence to increase respect and honor
17. Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability
18. Do not build fortresses to protect yourself - isolation is dangerous
19. Know who you are dealing with - do not offend the wrong person
20. Do not commit to anyone
21. Play a sucker to catch a sucker - seem dumber than your mark
22. Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power
23. Concentrate your forces
24. Play the perfect courtier
25. Re-create yourself
26. Keep your hands clean
27. Play on people's need to believe to create cultlike following
28. Enter action with boldness
29. Plan all the way to the end
30. Make your accomplishments seem effortless
31. Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal
32. Play to people's fantasies
33. Discover each man's thumbcrew
34. Be royal in your own fashion; act like a king to be treated like one
35. Master the art of timing
36. Disdain things you cannot have: ignoring them is the best revenge
37. Create compelling spectacles
38. Think as you like but behave like others
39. Stir up waters to catch fish
40. Despise the free lunch
41. Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes
42. Strike the shepherd and the sheep with scatter
43. Work on the hearts and minds of others
44. Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect
45. Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once
46. Never appear too perfect
47. Do not go past the mark you aimed for: in victory, learn when to stop
48. Assume formlessness

I hope you wont find the above "laws" too repugnant. Anyway, this book is well written with plenty of lively and interesting examples or stories. An excellent read for both leisure and self improvement, I must say. Highly recommended.


Defense   October 24, 2003
Stephen Northcutt (Kauai, HI USA)
20 out of 21 found this review helpful

In some sense this book offended me. It is cold and ruthless and the opposite of an aloha spirit. However, it also prepared me. I am in business internationally and you meet a lot of sharks. It is important to understand the offensive mindset to fabricate a defense when needed. I just finished my second reading of the book and plan to read it yearly.


Terrific synopsis of the classic historical writings on power.   September 16, 2006
Malcolm Q. Orrall (Sherman Oaks, CA)
23 out of 25 found this review helpful

This book is a no holds barred open discussion of raw power, entertainingly presented. It took me a little while to get over the almost completely amoral tone of the book, but I eventually got the sense that the amoral tone is there for a purpose: to clue you in to the fact that people who practice power at this level can often be completely amoral themselves. In that sense, the book truly gives the reader a sense of the mindset of those who will do anything to stay in power. There is a sense as one reviewer pointed out, that the book could have been written without this amoral tone, but then one would miss out on the opportunity of being immersed in its sense of amorality, which is an education in itself. Experiencing the amorality is a wakeup call that offers insight into how some of the world's ills have come to pass, though you may find yourself wanting to shower afterward. After reading it, you will definitely be more aware of the laws being played out on the world stage, and you will begin to recognize people in government who seem to be using it as a playbook. Some laws are even applicable in personal relationships...a scary thought.

By reading this, you will get an overview of the major philosophical writings on power, who as sources likely include at the very least Machiavelli, Han Fei Tzu, and Sun Tzu, though the authors do not identify the sources of the material for each law. This is one thing I wish they had done. That would have made it more useful to those wishing to put these laws and their development into some kind of historical framework. The authors have done a nice job however of blending together into one seamless volume the writings of these philosophers, whose works are also written in this amoral tone.

One of the most intriguing and worthwhile aspects of the book, are the many historical vignettes that the authors paint of how each law of power has been implemented, along with how failure to follow the law can be one's undoing. It is like two books in one in that sense. Not only do you get an understanding of raw power, but you get a very entertaining history lesson as well. The authors are also very careful to point out exceptions to the laws, and how they may backfire, making it read like a very thorough treatment of the subject for general readership.

One particularly interesting vignette has vivid application for our current situation in the war on terror, wherein we find ourselves exposed by going it alone without a substantial alliance while the rest of the world looks on. The vignette concerns a law which states that in seeking to increase power, let your rival do your fighting for you. The authors discuss how Mao Tse Tung suggested he and his rival Chiang Kai Shek set aside their differences and form an alliance in order to defeat the Japanese in World War II. Chiang Kai Shek agreed. Mao then suggested Chiang send his army in first, promising that he would follow Chiang into action by sending his army in as replacements. Once Chiang Kai Shek's army was committed, Mao held his army in abeyance and let Chiang Kai Shek take a beating. Then when Chiang's army was weakened, Mao's army was able to defeat him and exile him to Taiwan.

The warning for our own national campaign in the war on terror is that hopefully we will not allow ourselves to dissipate our national resources and become foolishly weakened by going it alone at the same time as other rival countries are growing stronger at our expense. The grandiosity of thinking we can go it alone makes us vulnerable to even more severe threats by potentially predatory nations who pretend to be sympathetic now, but who secretly revel in watching us deplete our national will, our troops and our treasury.

"The 48 Laws of Power" is a fascinating read, though except for a few of the laws, I can't imagine how it could actually help the average person's career unless you were a political operative or someone who had already accumulated a lot of political power and were predisposed to bend towards the amoral. But to build background knowledge and be able to recognize shadowy abuses of power while learning a little interesting history, I heartily recommend it.


THE 48 LAWS OF POWER: YOUR THINKING WILL NEVER REMAIN THE SAME   November 1, 2005
AYODEJI OLAYEMI (NIGERIA)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Read this book and your thinking will never remain the same. Drawing upon historic examples that portray man's journey through the ages as one long, unending quest to dominate his fellows, The 48 Laws of Power reads somewhat like a much expanded version of Machiavelli's The prince. Yet it carries a lot of its own originality - on many levels. One interesting, innovative feature of this book can be found in the numerous illustrations and anecdotes appearing along the page margins that the writer uses to buttress his points. Quite educative, they provided me an easy opportunity to browse through and be acquainted with fascinating classic literature from Aesop's Fables down to Sun Tzu's The Art of war.

Can we refer to the 48 Laws as success literature? Some of Robert Greene's advice seems innocent enough: Never outshine the master; win through your actions, never through argument; concentrate your forces; enter action with boldness. These are tips you would find in any self-help book that should put anyone on a stronger footing in the workplace with their boss, with colleagues, or even within the curious context of a romantic relationship.

But there is a darker, more sinister side to the 48 Laws, a side that appears to be responsible for all the notoriety that surrounds this book. There are laws which, seeming to controvert themselves in some instances, advocate underhandedness and the practice of outright evil in the pursuit of one's ambitions. Reading The 48 Laws awakens a moral conflict within us and presents two philosophies that attend the attainment of power - one inspired by goodness and the other governed by guile. But I think it all depends on the kind of success you seek. To those that would stoop to guile I would point out that Robert Greene has neglected to include what perhaps might have been the first law: All that goes around comes around; you reap what you sow.

On the other hand, some of these laws that appear to advocate evil - taken in the right context, they shed their malicious intent and turn out to be very helpful, well-meaning principles. For instance, I agree with the thought `So much depends on your reputation - guard it with you life'. But I think my reputation rests, more than anything, on my character and commitment to whatever I do, and it is along these lines I will seek to guard it. Also, when I think of `Make other people come to you - use bait if necessary', I tend to see it in the light of the principle that pronounces: The kind of person you are, to a large extent, determines the kind of people you will attract into your life. So I go about developing my `bait' - myself - in the best way I can. Fishing, as opposed to hunting, one success writer calls it.

An anecdote which fascinated me and which I kept returning to was one about Cosimo de Medici, the 15th Century Florentine banking magnate, who rode a mule instead of a horse and decidedly deferred to city officials, but effectively controlled government policy in Florence for decades. He spent a lot of his own funds on grandiose development projects across the city but preferred to live in a nondescript villa, and when he died asked to be buried in a simple tomb devoid of lavish ornamentation. Robert Greene uses Cosimo's example to illustrate a concept that is profound as it is though-provoking: the REALITY of power is much more important than the appearance of it. Unfortunately, most people tend to see it the other way.

On the whole, the 48 Laws awaken one to the on-going struggle for domination and control even in the most mundane transactions between humans. They insist that power is a reality, whether we like it or not. They impress upon us the thinking that, to survive in today's world, one has to become a man or woman of the world - at least, if not in one's actions, in one's awareness. For me, the 48 laws show one how to discern power-bids in relationships, how to read between the lines and scour the fine-print; how to recognize various inter-personal issues at stake in business and the workplace, navigating with panache and perceptiveness. They show one how to be `peaceful as a dove but wise as a serpent', how to `see the tricks coming', as another reviewer put it. Indeed, the 48 Laws seek to banish our innocence. And you'll agree...innocence, many times, can be a painful thing.



One meeeeellion dollars!   March 31, 2007
N. Ward (Norman, OK United States)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

This is not a "how to" guide for world domination, which seems to have left some reviewers perplexed and/or disappointed. You can take the Laws and historical examples and apply them how you see fit, or you can use Mr. Green's book to help you better understand the motives of those around you and maybe dodge a bullet or two.