Chapter 7

The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power

In previous chapters we have encountered those who see Machiavelli only as

a theorist of power. Such was Stanley Bing’s view in his advice to managers in
Chapter 4. As we noted then, Bing ran together money and power as though
they were one and the same thing. They often go together, true enough, but
like cloud and rain, not always. Likewise, that Machiavellian Personality con-
struct from Christie and Geis has a whiff of power to it in the enjoyment of
dominating others in the Dark Triad, not just dominating others, but enjoying
the domination. Even the monkeys do it, for Frans de Waal’s book has power
in the subtitle on the zero-sum contests of the chimpanzees.
If Machiavelli has been applied to domains like management and to crea-
tures like monkeys with some mighty stretches of the imagination, then how
much easier has it been to daub him about the political world of power and
leadership. He has been splashed about with the ferocity of a Jackson Pollock
squirting paint to create ‘Blue Poles.’ The use, abuse, and misuse of the name
‘Machiavelli,’ the adjective ‘Machiavellian’ and the noun ‘Machiavellianism’
in politics are overwhelming. It has been much harder to survey Machiavelli’s
deployment in politics than in management, social psychology, and primatol-
ogy, because the literature is so much more diverse. A search on Google for
­‘Machiavelli AND power’ yields more than 400,000 hits.1 Thomson’s Web of
Knowledge and the Web of Science help to track down references to M ­ achiavelli
in the scientific and professional literature of management, social psychology,
and primatology, but power and leadership are not as well defined fields of
research, so there is no obvious starting point. Yet the references abound and
we have sampled some of them.2 We have concentrated on the popular media
and not social science, though a few of the latter are mentioned.

1 We did these searches three times on 18 August 2016 for each combination using Safari,
Firefox, and Chrome and the results from each platform were nearly the same. Putting ‘and’
in upper case makes it a Boolean operator rather than a search term.
2 Machiavelli has even been declared a Green avant le mot by Tony Brenton, The Greening Of
Machiavelli: The Evolution of International Environmental Politics (London: Royal Institute of
International Affairs, 1994), 5–6; and also Dallas Hanson and Stuart Middleton, ‘The Chal-
lenges of Eco-Leadership: Green Machiavellianism,’ Green Management International, 5
(2000), 95–108.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004365513_009

168 Chapter 7

The association of Machiavelli with power and the common acceptance

of the first master narrative – that Machiavelli’s insights offered in sixteenth-
century Florence apply in the here and now – leads to the publishing o­ ddity of
The Prince being rebranded for a contemporary readership. Take, for e­ xample,
re:Organizing (sic) America, which describes itself on the back cover as

a practical guide to addressing and achieving the change that America

hopes for. Originally written by one of the great civil servants of all time,
re:Organizing America outlines a specific agenda centered on the proper
role of government in American life. From this basis general concepts are
outlined, including the need for a stable civic structure, the centrality of
ethical ideas, and the proper use of the military. This seminal work will
open your mind to a new understanding of what is and what could be.3

Its cover features a likeness of President Barack Obama to show readers how
up to date it is. Opening the book we found a new version of The Prince with-
out a word of explanation or apology. This is a ploy we encountered with
some  of the management books, which were nothing more than cut-down
versions of the original. The translation is credited to W.K. Marriott. There is
another version of The Prince on the market crediting him as translator and,
having read it through to the end, we noticed on the last page ‘Edward Dacre
[sic], 1640’ which is the first published English translation which we treated in
Chapter 2.4 A comparison of this Marriot with a facsimile of the Dacres edition
showed them not to differ, so we conclude, though nothing is said between
the covers of re:Organizing America, that Marriott worked from Dacres. That
is common practice, but leaving us to guess should not be common practice,
nor practiced at all. In any event, we wondered what President Obama had
to learn from M ­ achiavelli’s observations on sixteenth-century Spanish infan-
try, ­Turkish administration, or Swiss taxes. Of the same ilk is the anonymous
pocket book Power: Get it. Use it. Keep it.5 It consists of sixteen unnumbered
chapters like ‘Winning popularity’ with one paragraph excerpted from some-
where in The Prince. No author’s or editor’s name appears on the cover or title

3 W.K. Marriott, re:Organizing America: A Plan for the 21st Century: Nicolo Machiavelli’s The
Prince (Seattle: CreateSpace, 2010). The Marriott translation has long been out of copyright
and so can be used by one and all. Another example which is also based on the Marriott
translation is Rob McMahon, Machiavelli’s Prince: Bold-faced Principles on Tactics, Power, and
Politics (New York: Sterling, 2008).
4 W.K. Marriott, The Prince (London: Harper Collins, 2011 [1512]).
5 Anonymous, Power: Get it. Use it. Keep it (London: Profile Books, 2001).
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 169

page. The book has stable mates in something called the Illumination series,
e.g., Love, Happiness, and Faith. If nothing else, this little book shows how read-
ily Machiavelli is joined to commonplace ideas of power.
Then there is the gratuitous reference to him in such titles as Machiavelli’s
Children. There are two books with that intriguing title. The first, published in
1995 by Edward Pearce, is a rant about all those nasty people in British politics
by a journalist who specialized in such works. The references to Machiavelli
are few. They start and end with these passages: ‘his message is that if you want
something, then to do this and these are the best ways of getting it’ and ‘so for
a little amusement … I have set about illustrating The Prince for students and
general readers with examples drawn from our own times.’6 The tone through-
out is sour, cynical, and negative. The second book bearing that curious title
is by Richard Samuels, and its full title is Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and
Their Legacies in Italy and Japan. This is a fine work of research into the lead-
ership of post war Japan and Italy. Samuels invokes the spirit of Machiavelli
because of stress on the leaders, and says in passing ‘notwithstanding his repu-
tation, Machiavelli was concerned with the greater good.’ He also notes that
Mussolini cited Machiavelli at times.7 As a scholarly work, this book is much
more self-conscious about referring to Machiavelli, but apart from that com-
ment about leadership no explanation of the title is offered. One might, on
cultural, geographic, and historic grounds, nod at the Italian connection, but
Japan? If leadership is the bridge between Machiavelli and Japan, then why not
Plato and the philosopher-rulers? The answer lies in the idiomatic association
of Machiavelli with power.
Dear Prince: The Unexpurgated Counsels of N. Machiavelli to Richard Milhous
Nixon is a rather labored re-working of The Prince to make it relevant to Ameri-
can politics in the 1960s.8 Its satire falls flat because its dedicatee, Nixon, was
more truly a byword for the politics of that era than Machiavelli. Although the
book is full of advice on Latin America, China, youth, and more, there is not a
word about the Vietnam War. Not one. That is like Machiavelli failing to men-
tion the Papacy in his own times. The cover features a two-faced eagle which
is a parody of the eagle symbol that features on so much of the iconography
of the United States. We recognize Nixon on the right and must suppose that
on the left is Niccolò.

6 Edward Pearce, Machiavelli’s Children (London: Gollancz. 1995), 9 and 11.

7 Richard Samuels, Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2003), 8, 344, 15, and 74.
8 Edward L. Greenfield and Charles L. Mee, Jr, Dear Prince: The Unexpurgated Counsels of N.
Machiavelli to Richard Milhous Nixon (New York City: American Heritage Press, 1969).
170 Chapter 7

While among the Republicans, note Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall
of Karl Rove by Paul Alexander, a hatchet job on Mr Rove.9 Machiavelli is men-
tioned twice in the book, first in making the claim that,

For years, Rove had told people the book he read regularly, perhaps as of-
ten as once a year, was The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century
political thinker whose devious theories lurked behind the elegant prose
of The Prince: The end justifies the means. One must win at all costs. It is
better to be feared than loved.10

Rove must have been a slow learner if he truly had to re-read this unforgettable
little book annually. Machiavelli is mentioned again with the first invasion of
Iraq, which, it is implied, was dictated by electoral considerations.11 If so, dare
we observe that the same considerations figure in President Obama’s continu-
ation of that commitment?
Fictional works that profess to expose the workings of power include John
O’Byrne’s O’Machiavelli: Or How to Survive in Irish Politics (1996), a primer on
Irish politics.12 It contains the purported memoirs of W.B. O’Carolan about
the advice he gave to Eamon de Valera through the years. Despite the amus-
ing title, Machiavelli is there only as a shade. He is thanked in the acknowl-
edgements, most of the twenty-two chapters open with an aphorism from The
Prince, and a brief biography of Machiavelli concludes the book. In 2015 John
Drennan published Paddy Machiavelli: How to Get Ahead in Irish Politics.13 It has
a cover with an ostensible Machiavelli wearing a flat cap (perhaps in Donegal
tweed) and holding a hurley. Niccolò Machiavelli is mentioned on page vii for
the first and last time. The book recounts the experiences of Paddy Machiavelli
in Irish politics. It has some of the form of The Prince with chapter epigraphs,
seemingly from Machiavelli but that is not said, nor is there any attribution. It
is clever; it is witty; it has nothing substantive to do with Machiavelli.
Somewhat misleadingly, Jonathan Powell called his memoir, The New
­Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World.14 The cover of this book

9 Paul Alexander, Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove (Emmaus, pa: Rodale
Books, 2008).
10 Ibid., 13.
11 Ibid., 145.
12 John O’Byrne, O’Machiavelli: Or How to Survive in Irish Politics (Dublin: Leopold Publish-
ing, 1996).
13 John Drennan, Paddy Machiavelli: How to Get Ahead in Irish politics (Dublin: Gill &
­Macmillan, 2014).
14 Jonathan Powell, The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in The Modern World (London:
Bodley Head, 2010).
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 171

features Niccolò facing the microphones, but the book is about his time with
­British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Powell has a good knowledge of Machia-
velli and refers to him sagely, but the book is an insider’s reflection on the
­British ­Labour Party that contrasts the idealistic endeavors of Tony Blair
with the Borgia-like skullduggery of Gordon Brown. The Tories hardly come
into the ­picture. As always with the Labour Party, the enemies are within. This
partisan, numbingly detailed work leads only to the conclusion that hindsight
is wonderful. For all that, Powell’s book is more entertaining in its alleged in-
sights than the Canadian comedian Dick Bourgeois-Doyle’s labored attempts
at humor in Il Principio: The Principle, where ‘Piccolò Mochiavelli’ pokes fun
at ideology, people, and processes that make up government and politics.15
­Sweden has also been subjected to the Machiavelli treatment.16
Comparable to the foregoing titles, but less forced, is Alan Reid’s The ­Bandar
Log: A Labor Story of the 1950s, which remained unpublished at the author’s
passing.17 Reid was long a fixture in the parliamentary press gallery in ­Canberra.
When an eager biographer came across the manuscript in Reid’s papers, it was
published, making it very apparent why it had heretofore gone unpublished.
In it one Macker Kalley comments on the machinations of the Australian
­Labor Party in the early 1950s during the height of the Cold War. Even in the
Antipodes, Labor politics does not change; the enemies are within. Historically
one of the major players was a publicity-shy protagonist with an Italian name,
Robert Santamaria, and perhaps that is what inspired journalist Reid to reach
for Machiavelli. The odd title of Reid’s book comes from Rudyard Kipling’s The
Jungle Book and the reference is to the Monkey people, in a strange echo of the
ground covered in Chapter 6.
As we noted in Chapter 2, Machiavelli has long been associated with un-
savory politicos. When from London Napoleon was viewed as the scourge of
Europe, Machiavelli was used to explain his devious success with massed can-
non.18 Benito Mussolini referred to Machiavelli, no doubt animated in part by
patriotism as well as opportunism. Indeed he wrote a thesis about him for the
University of Bologna in which he described Machiavelli’s book as the states-
man’s supreme guide in a very temperate commentary on Italian politics of

15 Dick Bourgeois-Doyle, Il Principio: The Principle (Ottawa, Canada: Stubbornbooks, 2012).

This passage is from the back cover.
16 Staffan Persson, The Prince 2.0: Revelations from Machiavelli: a Timeless Book about Politi-
cal Power in The Modern World (San Bernardino, ca: No publisher given, 2014).
17 Alan Reid, The Bandar Log: A Labor Story of the 1950s (Ballarat, Australia: Connor Court,
2015 [1959]).
18 See Frank Preston Stearns, Napoleon and Machiavelli (New York City: General Books llc,
1903), as mentioned above in Chapter 2. It alleges that Bony learned from Machiavelli.
172 Chapter 7

1924.19 Mussolini’s later sins are regularly sheeted home to the infection he
got while reading Niccolò. Arnold Lien does not attribute influence to Ma-
chiavelli, but explains Mussolini’s regime through apparent similarities with
The Prince. Lien, like so many others, then and now, considers that ‘the con-
ditions in Italy (in 1922) were not in their fundamental nature different from
those which moved Machiavelli in 1513.’20 Even the militarism of Tojo’s gov-
ernment in Japan has been connected to Machiavelli.21 Stalin, in breaks be-
tween purging millions, supposedly read and annotated The Prince, though the
picture of Comrade Stalin, head bent, reading by lamp light with pencil stub
in hand somehow does not ring true.22 More metaphorically there is Arnold
Petersen’s book titled Stalinist Corruption of Marxism: A Study in Machiavel-
lian Duplicity.23 Corine Dupont lined up Machiavelli with Hitler in Auschwitz
ou le Sadisme Machiavélique Hitlérien.24 What possible parallels, analogies, or
comparisons could there be between Auschwitz and Niccolò? No doubt some-
where is a scribe who has asserted that Adolf Hitler schooled himself with
The Prince: recall from Chapter 2 that this was one of but three books named
by American soldiers in the ruins of Hitler’s library. In 1938 Stephen Roberts
called Goebbels

the most dangerous man in Europe precisely because he is so diaboli-

cally clever and so frankly Machiavellian in his views of mankind and
the methods he would employ. Throughout the length and breadth of
Germany, I heard nobody speak of him with affection.25

And, of Nazi banker and economics minister, Hjalmar Schacht, Roberts wrote,
‘He is of a race apart; in fact, he seems to have stepped out of medieval ­Florence,

19 Benito Mussolini, ‘Prelude to Machiavelli,’ The Living Age, (November 1924): 420–423. Re-
printed and translated from La Revue de Genève, September 1924.
20 Arnold J. Lien, ‘Machiavelli’s Prince and Mussolini’s Facism.’ Social Science, 4 (1029)4,
435–441.
21 Victor Rine, Machiavelli of Nippon (New York City: Wandering Eye, 1932).
22 Robert Tucker, Stalin As Revolutionary: A Study in History and Personality (London: Chatto
& Windus, 1974), p. 212; Erik van Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in
Twentieth-Century Revolutionary Patriotism (London: Routledge: Curzon, 2002), 332 N28;
and Robert Service, Stalin (London: Macmillan, 2004), 10.
23 Arnold B. Petersen, Stalinist Corruption of Marxism: A Study in Machiavellian Duplicity
(New York: New York Labor News Co, 1953).
24 Corine Dupont, Auschwitz ou le Sadisme Machiavélique Hitlérien (Nantes: Amalthée,
2006).
25 Stephen Roberts, The House that Hitler Built (New York: Harper, 1938), 20.
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 173

a Machiavelli with a complete mastery of twentieth-century technique.’26 More

recently, the Machiavellian dna of Fidel Castro has been analyzed by Alfred
Cuzán.27 More than one earnest African has claimed that Idi Amin learned
the little he knew from The Prince. Saddam Hussein was likened to Machiavelli
as if that proved something about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Sometimes
we are so hard-pressed to explain evil that we blame a book on the shelf, as if
Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Amin, or Hussein were book-worms.
Writing in ‘the spirit of the original Prince,’ Dick Morris presents The New
Prince: Machiavelli Updated for the Twenty-First Century, as a remedy for the
ills of American politics.28 Morris takes credit for much of the electoral suc-
cess of Bill Clinton. Machiavelli gets mentioned on the front cover and front
flap of the dust jacket, and after that is mentioned again exactly twice in gar-
bled prose flung over 252 pages. Oddly, Morris takes the view that Machiavelli
would recommend idealism as the pragmatic course, a remark not explained
in what follows. He mentions that Machiavellianism has become identified
unfairly with ‘skulduggery, manipulation and deceit,’ but does not enlarge on
these observations. Machiavelli’s comment that it is better to be feared than
loved gets trotted out but, not being integrated with either idealism or prag-
matism, it is unintelligible.29
In contrast, Machiavelli also gets marquee time in an American government
textbook by Bernard W. Wishy called Good-Bye, Machiavelli: Government and
American Life.30 This is a sober account of the historical evolution of the insti-
tutions and practices of American national government suitable for a college
course. It mentions Machiavelli eight times, not many for a title role. The foun-
dation of American politics is described as leaving European cunning and cru-
elty (read Machiavelli) behind.31 Machiavelli’s complexity is acknowledged, but
neither Machiavelli nor John Pocock are found in the extensive b­ ibliography.32
Pocock applied Machiavelli to the creation of the American constitution as the

26 Ibid., 183.
27 Alfred Cuzán, Is Fidel Castro a Machiavellian Prince? (Miami, fl: Endowment for Cuban
American Studies, 1999).
28 Dick Morris, The New Prince: Machiavelli Updated for the Twenty-First Century (Los Ange-
les: Renaissance Books, 1999), xv and 76.
29 Ibid., vii 147.
30 Bernard W. Wishy, Good-Bye, Machiavelli: Government and American Life (Baton Rouge,
la: Louisiana State University Press. 1995).
31 Ibid., viii.
32 J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Re-
publican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).
174 Chapter 7

triumph of virtú over fortuna, an application found in Wishy’s book, which is

unexceptionable except for this omission and its gratuitous title.
Then there is The Princely Press: Machiavelli on American Journalism by John
Merrill, which offers a critique of contemporary American media.33 It does so
in the form of an interview with Machiavelli who, like many a well-paid con-
sultant, agrees with his employer, author Merrill, about the perilous state of
the free press. Earlier in Chapter 2 we noted that in nineteenth-century France,
Maurice Joly had high hopes for a free press in his dialogue between M ­ achiavelli
and Montesquieu. Merrill does a very good job of bringing M ­ achiavelli to life,
but it is unclear quite why he chose Machiavelli to fill the role of interlocutor.
More alarming is Merrill’s view that Machiavelli could give lessons on selfish-
ness to Ayn Rand, something of an astonishing claim.34 Surely no one could
or would dare try to give Rand a lesson on selfishness. Furthermore, any claim
that Machiavelli endorses selfishness and greed is unfounded.
Last in this review of the uses of Machiavelli’s name is what appears to
be have started as an undergraduate thesis entitled Machiavelli Meets Mayor
­Quimby: Political Commentary in the First Season of The Simpsons. The only
­reference to Machiavelli in its sixty-nine pages is this:

While the title of this thesis is Machiavelli Meets Mayor Quimby: An Anal-
ysis of the Political Commentary of The Simpsons 1989–1990 please note
this title was selected because it symbolically encapsulates the scope of
the paper with a representation of politics in the form of Machiavelli and
a representation of politics within ‘The Simpsons’ in the form of its cor-
rupt, Kennedy-accented Mayor Quimby, and not because it will provide a
Machiavellian analysis of the content of the television program.35

In other words, the title is used to attract attention, not because it describes
the content.
Many of the analysts and authors whose works we reviewed in Chapters 3
and 4 on management referred to Machiavelli and power.36 There are others

33 John Merrill, The Princely Press: Machiavelli on American Journalism (Lanham: University
Press of America. 1998).
34 Ibid., 62.
35 Nathan Thoms, Machiavelli Meets Mayor Quimby: Political Commentary in the First Season
of The Simpsons (Raleigh, nc: Lulu.com, 2006), 3.
36 Instances include Richard Buskirk, Modern Management & Machiavelli: The Executive’s
Guide to the Psychology and Politics of Power (New York City: New American Library, 1974);
Gerald R. Griffin, Machiavelli on Management: Playing and Winning the Corporate Power
Game (New York City: Prager, 1991); Ken Simmonds, ‘Corporate Governance: Real Power,
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 175

who also refer to power and Machiavelli together but without detail.37 While
most of these references are transitory, some writers have troubled to go into
the matter more deeply.
In 1998 Robert Greene produced The 48 Laws of Power, which bears this
description:

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills

three thousand years of the history of power into forty-eight well expli-
cated laws. As attention-grabbing in its design as it is in its content, this
bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence,
synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clause-
witz, and other great thinkers.38

This book is in its third edition and has appeared in hardback, a full size paper-
back, and a pocket edition for ready reference. The cover of a recent printing of
the paperback edition proclaims it to be a National Bestseller. We include it be-
cause, though Machiavelli does not figure in the title, he is a specter haunting
its pages. He is indexed thirty-three times. How does that compare to other big
names in power? Napoleon, conqueror of most of Europe, gets twenty men-
tions and his territorial twentieth-century counterpart, Adolf Hitler, a mere
two. That oft cited and seldom read Chinese general Sun-Tzu gets ten refer-
ences and Carl von Clausewitz but four. J. Edgar Hoover gets but one. Then

Cecil King and Machiavelli,’ Machiavelli, Marketing and Management, edited by Phil Har-
ris, Andrew Lock and Patricia Rees (London: Routledge, 2000), 122–135; Ian Demack, The
Modern Machiavelli: The Seven Principles of Power in Business (Sydney: Allen and Unwin,
2002); John Dryden, ‘Niccolò Machiavelli: The Patron Saint of Power,’ Business: The Ulti-
mate Resource, edited by Warren Bennis et al., (Cambridge, ma: Perseus, 2002), 1016–1017;
and Dwayne Winseck, ‘Netscapes of Power: Convergence, Consolidation and Power in the
Canadian Mediascape,’ Media Culture Society, 24(2002)6, 795–819. Though this latter entry
does not take Machiavelli’s name in the title, it is freely used as an adjective to describe
the media in the text.
37 Troy Bruner and Philip Eager, Modern Machiavelli: 13 Laws of Power, Persuasion and Integ-
rity (No city stated: Changemakers Books, 2017) and Agent Dmitri Ignaschewitsch, The
Law of Power (Machiavelli of the New Age): How to Gain and Maintain It (Independently
Published, available from Amazon usa, 2017). This latter work is part of series that in-
cludes titles about Online Dating, Relationships, Networking, and one’s Ex. These titles
bring to mind Nick Casanova of whom we will see more in Chapter 9.
38 Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power (New York City: Penguin, 2000[1998]). That descrip-
tion comes from the back cover, a good place to judge a book, contrary to the old saying.
Greene gives no pages or chapters. His bibliography lists the one-volume Modern Library
edition of The Prince and The Discourses in its 1940 printing.
176 Chapter 7

there are the omissions. We found no entry for Thomas Hobbes, who some say
advocated, nay celebrated, absolute power.
This book is designed for browsing and entertainment, says Greene.39 From
Green’s collection of 48 laws we offer a few that echo Machiavelli to indicate
their character.

• Law 1 Never outshine the master.

• Law 2 Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.
• Law 3 Conceal your intentions.
• Law 4 Always say less than necessary.
• Law 5 So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life.
• Law 6 Court attention at all costs.
• Law 7 Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.

Going over the forty-eight laws, we found Niccolò mentioned in association

with fourteen of them. That is more than any other figure named in the book
and thus explains why it warrants attention here. Nearly all of the references to
Machiavelli are to The Prince. The exception is a letter. We could not trace any
of the quotations to the Discourses. Like many others, for Greene ­Machiavelli is
a one-book author. While much of Greene’s discussion is measured and makes
sense, it does no service to Machiavelli who is called as an expert witness and
limited to answering the questions Greene puts to him. Any hedging, any
qualification, any context that Machiavelli might have, say in the Discourses,
is ignored.
This cross examination begins on the opening page with this observation: ‘as
the great Renaissance diplomat and courtier Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, “any
man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great
number who are not good.”’40 Greene seems to believe that M ­ achiavelli served
at the court of a noble or royal personage, thus describing him as courtier. As
we have pointed out more than once, he did not. A casual reader, neverthe-
less, might conclude that he did from the way in which it is said. The Preface
concludes by quoting the same passage again. If it is worth quoting, it is worth
quoting twice in quick succession. Thereafter Machiavelli is obliged to answer
when Greene demands. Consider a few examples. At Law 11, ‘Learn to keep
people dependent on you,’ Machiavelli is quoted to the effect that a wise prince
will keep people dependent on him.41 This law also occasions a ­reference to
one of the hoariest chestnuts in the Machiavelli basket, namely that it is better

39 Ibid., xxiii.
40 Ibid., xvii.
41 Ibid., 85.
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 177

to be feared than loved.42 As usual, Machiavelli’s conclusion is quoted but not

the reasoning that led him to it, its Ciceronian resonance, or the qualifications
he himself put on that conclusion. In the handbook market, things are best
kept simple.43
Law 24 is ‘Play the perfect courtier.’ Quoting Machiavelli, Greene makes the
point that we can learn from the past and that those who dismiss lessons from
the past reason ‘as though heaven, the sun, the elements, and men had changed
the order of their motions and power, and were different from what they were
in ancient times.’44 Why does Greene quote Machiavelli for this exercise and
not Hitler, Goebbels, Mao, or a host of other possibilities that come and go in
his book without the persistence of Machiavelli? This is the same question we
have asked of the other authors in other genres that we have reviewed.
Machiavelli’s study of Cesare Borgia is noted along the way and emphasized
in Law 26, ‘Keep your hands clean,’ where Greene writes that ‘Cesare Borgia
was a master player in the game of power.’45 Always planning several moves
ahead, he set his opponents the cleverest traps. For this ‘Machiavelli honored
him above all others in The Prince.’46 Honored? This is a most unusual read-
ing of Machiavelli, especially as Cesare never seemed bothered about clean or
dirty hands.
Greene’s tone and temper are refined compared to the clumsy efforts of
Stanley Bing, but these authors are alike in making repeated references to pow-
er without pausing to define the term.47 We have no such reticence: power is
the capacity get others to do as one wants them to do, leading to consequences
one prefers. Others are more likely to do these things if we try to influence
them than if we do not. The capacity to do so includes words and deeds. This
is the atomistic definition used in most social science. One can lead others to
do things that are benefits to third parties, that are good for the doers, that are

42 Ibid., 87.
43 For keeping it simple nothing can beat David Bader’s summary of The Prince in One Hun-
dred Great Books in Haiku (New York City: Penguin, 2010), 15:
What I learned at court:
Being more feared than loved – good.
Getting poisoned – bad.
44 Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power (New York City: Penguin, 2000[1998]). That descrip-
tion comes from the back cover, a good place to judge a book, contrary to the old saying.
Greene gives no pages or chapters. His bibliography lists the one-volume Modern Library
edition of The Prince and The Discourses in its 1940 printing.
45 Ibid., 109.
46 Ibid., 202.
47 See Peter Belmi and Kristin Laurin, ‘Who Wants to Get to the Top? Class and Lay Theories
about Power,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 111(2016)4, 505–529.
178 Chapter 7

ills to third parties, and the like. The definition is neutral. The use of power
is not necessarily aimed at acquiring money or material wealth for the user,
outside Bing’s tiny world. Nor does wealth always endow one with the capacity
to affect others. Many wealthy individuals make no effort to influence others.
The phenomenally wealthy Howard Hughes was a recluse who had no inter-
est in anyone else. Others of wealth do try to influence the wide world, and
then complain about the little effect their efforts have. The examples include
George Soros. Only in the pages of an airport book is the world so simple that
wealth equals power equals wealth.
Greene’s is one volume in a series called, ‘Amoral, be ruthless. Reign
­supreme,’ as it is styled on the inside back cover of The 48 Laws of Power. There
is also a video on YouTube.48 The companion volumes are The Art of Seduction,
The 33 Strategies of War, and Mastery.49

Machiavelli and Women

Greene touches on the subject of women but there are more extensive at-
tempts to link Machiavelli and women. A delightful subject, we imagine Nic-
colò would say, for he certainly loved women, but more doubtful would be his
delight at the connections attempted by researchers. In one study of women
and power in the Public Administration Review, Machiavelli is mentioned only
in the title.50 Once again an author has exploited Machiavelli’s name to stand
for a particular kind of politics – and perhaps to attract attention. As to power
styles, one empirical study is cited, that of Dorothea Braginsky using a sample
of ninety-six fifth graders, half of them boys and half girls. The boys scored
higher on Mach iv than the girls.51 From this finding, Karen van Wagner and
Cheryl Swanson offer the opinion that women and men differ in expressions
of power.52 It is not so simple; Lucrezia Borgia was with Cesare all the way and
may have been ahead of him at times. A great many other studies with the
Mach iv and v scales put paid to such simple conclusions, both after Bragin-
sky and before the publication of the Wagner and Swanson article. They do

48 Accessed on 1 June 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_USBCFQzXM.

49 Greene, The Art of Seduction (New York City: Penguin 2003); The 33 Strategies of War (New
York City: Penguin, 2006); and Mastery (New York City: Penguin, 2014).
50 Karen van Wagner and Cheryl Swanson, ‘From Machiavelli to Ms: Differences in Male-
Female Power Styles,’ Public Administration Review, 39 (1979) 1, 66–72.
51 Dorothea Braginsky, ‘Machiavellianism and Manipulative Interpersonal Behavior in Chil-
dren,’ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 6 (1970) 1, 77–99.
52 Wagner and Swanson, ‘From Machiavelli to Ms.’, 70.
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 179

not confirm Braginsky’s conclusions.53 There followed others which could not
find it either.54 Some studies do find a sex difference, but it is not found time
after time by different researchers.55 Sometimes it is found, sometimes it is not
found. A conclusion in the pages of the prestigious journal par based on one
study invites doubt.
But women have had the last word. Harriet Rubin’s The Princessa: Machia-
velli for Women purports to be the work of Machiavella. It mimics the layout
and style of The Prince and offers advice on how a woman can become power-
ful without becoming a man.56 She [be it Rubin or Machiavella] urges her aco-
lytes to be honest, truthful, courageous, and feminine, assuring them that they
can do it and have it all. It reads like an update of Aimee Buchanan’s 1942 ad-
vice to women noted in Chapter 3. She cites Hillary Clinton more than once as
an example of what not to do. Her main theme is the use of one’s own abilities
and making the strengths of one’s rivals into assets. The examples of how to do
the latter are not iron-clad. For example, to moderate a powerful person in a
meeting, sit next to ‘him’ (the powerful person is always a ‘him’ in this book).
She claims this will throw ‘him’ off his game.57 Despite its title, Jolene Koester’s
1982 article ‘The Machiavellian Princess: rhetorical dramas for women manag-
ers’ makes no mention of Machiavelli.58
The approach of Princessa was prefigured by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in
Benigna Machiavelli in 1914.59 This short novella tells of the eponymous charac-
ter maneuvering and manipulating her way through and out of the restricted
world available to women at the time. When her school is short of supplies she

53 Jerome Singer, ‘The Use of Manipulative Strategies: Machiavellianism and Attractive-

ness,’ Sociometry, 27 (1964) 2, 128–150 and C.F. Turner and D.C. Martinez, ‘Socioeconomic
Achievement and Machiavellian Personality,’ Social Psychology Quarterly, 40(1977) 4,
325–336.
54 Marvin Okanes and William Murray, ‘Manipulative Tendencies and Social Insight in a
Hospital Setting,’ Psychological Reports, 47(1980), 991–994 and Florence Geis and Tae
Moon, ‘Machiavellianism and Deception,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
41(1981) 4, 766–775.
55 Gerald Porter, Moral Judgment and the Conceptualization of Justice (Albany, State Univer-
sity of New York, PhD dissertation, 1990).
56 Harriet Rubin, The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women (London: Bloomsbury, 1997).
57 See the spirited review of this book in Anne Fisher, ‘What Women Can Learn from
­Machiavelli,’ Fortune 137 (1997) 7, 162.
58 Jolene Koester, ‘The Machiavellian Princess: Rhetorical Dramas for Women Managers,’
Communication Quarterly, 30(1982) 3, 165–172.
59 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Benigna Machiavelli (Santa Barbara, ca: Bandana Books, 1994
[1914]).
180 Chapter 7

gets them by hook and crook. She saves her sister from seduction, and deals
with her abusive father. All that is just the beginning. It is all carried off with
understated wit and panache.
Books by men on power relations between the sexes contrast badly with
these two vigorous books by women. Reluctantly, we start with Thomas
­Lundmark’s Niccolò Machiavelli: The Return of the Prince (Il ritorno dei Principe),
dedicated to W. Clinton.60 We assume this Clinton is the one-time President. In
a little over one hundred pages this monograph airs a host of misogynist griev-
ances and offers remedies of the same kind. It is couched as a second volume by
­Machiavelli written the year after The Prince. The editor, Lundmark, claims only
to have modernized the spelling and some of the references (some of which are
certainly very shrewd). Less pleasing is the content of the book. The back cover
declares that, ‘God created woman for man’s pleasure, so man should enjoy her.
If she no longer pleases him, he should discard her.’ It refers to striking women
down, and commanding them: we probably do not need to go on.
Comic relief to the misogynist aggression of Lundmark is Nick Casanova’s
The Machiavellian’s Guide to Womanizing. In the foreword, Casanova mentions
Machiavelli, and that is the last mention in the 150 pages of the book.

In the sixteenth century, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a book, The Prince,

about how to gain and keep political power through devious means. He
has since received more than his fair share of vilification. In the popular
mind, Machiavelli’s name has become synonymous with duplicity and
evil. Whether this is justified is debatable. What is beyond debate is that
those who have followed his teachings in the intervening centuries have
met with great success. Had Machiavelli focused his energies on woman-
izing, this is the book he would have written.61

Had Casanova stopped at ‘more than his fair share of vilification!’ he would
have made sense. Regrettably he did not. He soon abandons Machiavelli but
remains long enough, like Lundmark, to blame it all on Niccolò. The first short
chapters begin with an aphorism from Machiavelli, but even that ends on page
eleven. The book offers advice on how to meet women (go to places where
they are – video stores, supermarkets, art galleries, jogging paths), and what

60 Thomas Lundmark, Niccolò Machiavelli: The Return of the Prince (Il ritorno dei Principe)
(Munster, Germany: Lit Verlag, 1998).
61 Nick Casanova, The Machiavellian’s Guide to Womanizing (New York City: Castle Books,
1995), xiii. For a more serious take, see Haig Patapan, Machiavelli in Love: The Modern Poli-
tics of Love and Fear (Lanham, md: Lexington, 2006) but it nonetheless supposes Machia-
velli applies to the manners and mores of today.
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 181

to say (start with hello). It does not treat rape as a joke, though it does slightly
equivocate on whether ‘No’ means ‘Try harder’ or ‘No.’ Whatever else we may
say about Casanova, we salute his industry for, as we shall show in Chapter 9,
he has a string of Machiavellian guides to his credit. With Casanova in mind,
note that social psychologists have unintentionally tested some of his advice.
‘In a large naturalistic field-study, 59 men romantically advanced 1395 women
on the street’ in Berlin to see how the women reacted. Intriguing, as that sum-
mary is, in the text it is put more prosaically with assurances that all ethical
protocols were strictly observed.62
Then there is Sheila Marsh’s The Feminine in Management Consulting,
which mentions Machiavelli as an advisor and consultant.63 She notes that
consulting and advising have a history that is ignored, and names Plato and
Machiavelli as consultants avant le mot. The few references to Machiavelli
in this book seem to be exclusively from The Prince. Accordingly she writes,
‘Machiavelli is ­concerned entirely with the leader staying in power. But
even  ­Machiavelli  is  concerned with social stability and the common good,
holding strong personal views on the desirability of republicanism.’64 ‘Even?’
She ignores the Discourses and its discussion of republics, and thus does not
appreciate that Machiavelli is not ‘concerned entirely with the leader staying
power.’ In some ways though, that is beside the larger point that both books
have stability as a goal. With foreign armies on the march, stability was not
something Machiavelli could take for granted.
Michael Korda’s Power! How to Get It, How to Use It, claims on the front cover
to be ‘the bestselling manual of corporate warfare…’ Machiavelli’s appearance
in these pages is brief. Well into the book Korda urges his readers to ‘fear ev-
erything and everybody.’65 This quotation from chapter xix of The Prince was
often set reading in many an undergraduate education in the United States,
which may explain the frequency of its mention. Korda has a distorted text,
which reads, ‘a prince ought to reckon conspiracies of little account when his
people hold him in esteem; but when it is hostile to him, and bears hatred
towards him, he ought to fear everything and everybody.’ As Cicero said, only
princes hated by their subjects should, reasonably enough, fear conspiracies,
but those qualifications would not suit Korda.66

62 John Rauthmann, Marlit Kappes, and Johannes Lanzinger, ‘Shrouded in the Veil of Dark-
ness: Machiavellians but not Narcissists and Psychopaths Profit from Darker Weather in
Courtship,’ Personality and Individual Differences 67(2014), 57–63.
63 Sheila Marsh, The Feminine in Management Consulting (London: Palgrave, 2009), 7.
64 Ibid., 65.
65 Michael Korda, Power! How to Get It, How to Use It (New York City: Ballantine, 1975), 107.
66 Cicero, De officiis, Book. ii, vii, 24.
182 Chapter 7

Machiavelli never goes out of date, it seems, for much more recently Jef-
frey Pfeffer published Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t. Pfeffer
refers to the Machiavellian adage that while it is desirable to be both loved
and feared, fear is best to keep power.67 Of course, Niccolò thought love and
fear could be combined, and he did not give fear the absolute preference con-
textless that Pfeffer does. Pfeffer adorns this claim with scientific evidence
by citing one study that shows negative evaluations are taken more seriously
than positive ones by subjects. ‘According to Pfeffer, we need to stop seeing the
world as a just and fair place, and actively develop those qualities needed to
achieve power,’ said David Siegried in Booklist, and that seems – dare we say
it – a just and fair summary.68
The back cover of Michael Shea’s Influence: How to Make the System Work for
You; A Handbook for the Modern Machiavelli declares this is

The ultimate guide book on how to influence your boss to make deci-
sions in your favour. Starting from the recommendation to work out
the company’s informal system (ie the way it really works), Michael
Shea divulges the secret skills of influence, here defined as ‘the capa-
bility to change the minds or decisions of others without having the
final authority, so to do.’ The techniques he presents include creating a
cause, creating a conflict, the mother-in-law factor, committeemanship,
out of ­committeemanship,  the use of facts, hype, the adoption of op-
tions, the three options approach and playing on stress. Michael Shea
­illustrates them from his own experience in business, in politics and in
dealing with the media.69

While still on the back cover, we note that the heading there is ‘Power is never
what it seems.’
While this is not the ultimate guide, since there have been many others
since 1988, let us turn to Machiavelli’s presence in this text. The index has thir-
ty-eight entries against his name. No other individual has more than three.
That concentration on Machiavelli affirms his place in the subtitle, as does the
author’s comments in the preface, where he writes, ‘The Prince, along with his
[­Machiavelli’s] other writings, is not a blueprint for this book, but has had a

67 Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t (New York City: Harper-
Business, 2010), 87.
68 Quoted on the back cover of ibid.
69 Michael Shea, Influence: How To Make the System Work for You; A Handbook for the Modern
Machiavellian (London: Century, 1988).
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 183

seminal influence on it. Apart from when in pursuit of some obscure ­quotation,
I have used no other books or references.’70 Shea’s comments on Machiavelli in
this half page preface are sensible and suggest that Machiavelli’s chief ­interest
was in stable and secure government, a sound conclusion. However, nowhere in
the remaining pages of the book is Machiavelli discussed. Rather the a­ pproach
is the Machiavelli myth supermarket for quotations. Aphorisms are quoted in
various chapters amounting to those thirty-eight references. Some come from
The Prince and others from the Discourses, and others bear no attribution.
They include the usual epigrammatic remarks about fear, alliances, and for-
tune. Written in England at the zenith of Margaret Thatcher’s administration,
the book breathlessly reveals how to win at negotiation (conceal one’s goal),
manipulate committees (feed information in by increments), and dominate
others (ridicule and sexism are commended). Of course ­Machiavellianism as
a thoughtless idiom for political chicanery has expanded into new domains
since the twentieth century and, as we have seen, Machiavelli’s name has be-
come a myth for the dark side of politics. To associate him with cheap conduct
and sexism adds an undeserved hue to his already stained reputation. He has,
it seems, become a secular surrogate for another myth, the devil.
A primer for aspiring little devils is Claudia Hart’s A Child’s Machiavelli:
A Primer on Power, which describes itself as:

Darkly comic
Enticingly designed
Primer for survival
Sweetly pastel images
Tongue-in-cheek
Savage
Mischievous format
Ruthlessly instructive
Schoolyard language
A gift book.71

The book has both French and German translations.72 It is a pink ‘children’s’
book that, in Jonathan Swift’s manner, recommends theft and murder. The

70 Ibid., ix.
71 Claudia Hart, A Child’s Machiavelli : A Primer on Power (New York City: Penguin Studio,
1998).
72 For more detail see the website accessed on 6 May 2017 at http://www.claudiahart.com/
portfolio/machiavelli.html.
184 Chapter 7

book speaks for itself: ‘if you want to take over some place don’t forget to kill
not just the boss but also all his kids!’73 Turn the page, and the advice is, ­‘either
be really nice to people or kill ’em. If you don’t kill ’em and you’re not so nice,
then they’re gonna come after you.’ The text goes on in this allegedly darkly
comic vein, referring to beating up people and getting on top of others. Then at
page twenty, Hart writes, ‘a gun is man’s best friend.’ Images rise up of ­Charlton
Heston’s smiling NRA presidential face. A few pages later, it reads ‘if you wan-
na give presents to people make sure it is other people’s stuff.’ That is called
stealing in most schoolyards. Hart writes, ‘people who cheat are always more
successful than people who are honest at about page thirty. The book rates
well with reviewers on Amazon for its subtlety and insight – ‘a truly inspired
work of genius.’ – but none of them say what needs to be said. There is NO
­Machiavelli for children. Altogether different is a charming little picture book
featuring cute kids with no discernable connection to Machiavelli, but the title
is Christopher Land’s Machiavelli for Babies.74
Before we leave the playground, one other voice answered the roll call.
­Michael Scott has written a series of books on sorcery for adolescents called
‘The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel.’75 Niccolò Machiavelli features as
a villainous immortal. He is made to say he was at Stalingrad on the German
side. He is depicted as head of the French secret service, wearing fine Italian
suits, and riding around in a Lancia doing evil in the best tradition of a mafia
prince. He is nonetheless personable, even likeable. Scott also has it that

Niccolò Machiavelli had always been a careful man. He had survived and
even thrived in the dangerous and deadly Medici court in Florence in the
fifteenth century, a time when intrigue was a way of life and violent death
and assassination was commonplace.76

It is tiresome to repeat that Niccolò was never a courtier, though by repetition

he seems to be morphing into one. Dav Pilkey’s Capitaine Bobette et la machi-
nation machiavélique du professeur K.K. Prout, a Canadian children’s book
­featuring an underpants clad superhero, is sheer fun.77 We also note an article

73 Note that the pages in this book have no number so we numbered them.
74 Christopher Land, Machiavelli for Babies (No City Given: Shaka Shaka Publishing, 2015).
75 Michael Scott, The Magician, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (New York City:
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2009). The historical Nicholas Flamel (1330–1418) had
a considerable reputation as an alchemist.
76 Ibid., 279.
77 Dav Pilkey, Capitaine Bobette et la machination machiavélique du professeur K.K. Prout
(Markkam, Ontario: Scholastic, 2001).
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 185

in the Journal of Play by David Lancy and Annette Grove called ‘Marbles and
Machiavelli.’ about children’s games, which refers to Mach iv studies.78
Suzanne Evans’s book for parents, Machiavelli for Moms: Maxims on the
­Effective Governance of Children, Because Sometimes Ends Do Justify Means, is a
­pastiche on The Prince, which stretches a very long bow in comparing brats to
Borgias. But Evans knows her Machiavelli and, unlike most of those who pillage
The Prince for dramatic maxims, she treats the text with respect. She writes, for
example, that Machiavelli may not have written the infamous phrase often as-
sociated with him: ‘the ends justify the means.’ She added that his goal was
not to acquire power for its own sake, but to use it as a tool for securing the
safety and stability of the state. What he really says is subtler: that others will
ultimately judge actions by results.79 While the question is, as always, why the
publisher, marketers, and all the other people involved in bringing this book
before the reading public thought using Machiavelli’s name enhanced it, we
are left in no doubt about the reasons of the author. She tells us that, at her
wit’s end coping with four young children and academic duties, she took ref-
uge in her study and came across an old copy of The Prince. Hence, while her
publishing team might have domesticated Machiavelli, making him harmless
for the family, Evans treats him as an inspiration. This is a book, which despite
its translation into other languages, is about American parenting, a parent’s
discovery of the importance of imposing boundaries upon the demands of
children rather than indulging them. It is more about authority than power,
but it is about power, too. The irony of such domestications is their stark con-
trast with the dangerous uses of The Prince, claimed by those who link it caus-
ally to the worst crimes of the past two centuries or the bloody era in which he
himself lived.
Among those who now invoke Machiavelli’s patronage are lobbyists. Most
noteworthy is Rinus van Schendelen, author of Machiavelli in Brussels: The Art
of Lobbying the eu, superseded by a second edition, More Machiavelli in Brus-
sels: The Art of Lobbying the eu.80 On the back cover, the title is justified in
these words:

78 David Lancy and Annette Grove, ‘Marbles and Machiavelli: The Role of Game Play in Chil-
dren’s Social Development,’ Journal of Play, iii(2011)4, 489–499.
79 Suzanne Evans, Machiavelli for Moms: Maxims on the Effective Governance of Children, Be-
cause Sometimes Ends Do Justify Means (New York City: Touchstone, 2013), 12. Cf. Suzanne
Evans, ‘How Machiavelli Saved My Family,’ Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2013, accessed
15 April 2016 at http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873236466045784008040350
71688.
80 Rinus van Schendelen, More Machiavelli in Brussels: The Art of Lobbying the eu. Revised
edition (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010).
186 Chapter 7

Niccolò Machiavelli is a model for both sciences [public administration

and political science]. He was the early modern scientist in his field, and
was focused on the two questions of how influence is really exerted and
how it can be made more effective. His answer to the second question is,
in short: by intelligent and prudent behavior.

With those fifty-two words Machiavelli is placed in the title. Machiavelli is

mentioned in passing nine times. The following instance is representative of
the other eight: ‘In his Il Principe, Machiavelli gives both free advice to his ruler,
Lorenzo dei Medici, on how to survive politically and, more implicitly, a code
of conduct to his fellow citizens on how to approach Lorenzo successfully.’81
Most of the other eight mentions are less substantial, say where his name is
included in a list of Renaissance thinkers.
V.S.M.D. Guinzbourg’s The Eternal Machiavelli in the United Nations World:
A Treatise on Diplomacy is a privately published collection of typescript copies
of correspondence, not a treatise.82 The letters are about international affairs,
the United Nations, and much else. The introduction neither explains nor jus-
tifies the volume. The book is dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the birth of
­Niccolò Machiavelli. Yet is only in the Preface to Part ii we read:

The author feels justified in having given to this book on modern diplo-
macy the title, ‘The Eternal Machiavelli.’ The clear-sighted presentation
of axioms of diplomacy by this 15th Century commentator, and the ba-
sic motivation of leaders and people of all ages as exemplified by him,
remain, as they must, the only effective guidelines for the study of the
contemporary scene as well.83

There follows hundreds of pages of letters un diplomats sent to Guinzbourg. It

seems the first half consists of copies of his letters to these diplomats and the
second half is what they sent in reply. What is the point? None emerges. It is an
oddity among oddities.
Combining discussions of marketing with lobbying, Phil Harris has of-
fered the reading public many publications on Machiavelli. Each of Harris’
publications starts with some reference to Machiavelli and then discusses the
particulars of a lobbying case study. The industry and efficiency with which

81 Ibid., 150.
82 Victor S.M.D. Guinzbourg, The Eternal Machiavelli in the United Nations World: A Treatise
on Diplomacy (Published privately in typescript, 1969).
83 Ibid., 487.
The Perennial Pairing: Machiavelli and Power 187

these papers have appeared over the years is impressive. To read them as a set
is to notice the wide dissemination. The full references can be found in the
bibliography.

Harris, P. and A. Lock (1996). ‘Machiavellian Marketing: The Development

of Corporate Lobbying in the uk.’ Journal of Marketing Management
Harris, P., D. Moss, et al. (1999). ‘Machiavelli’s Legacy to Public Affairs:
a Modern Tale of Servants and Princes in uk Organisations.’ Journal of
Communication Management
Harris, P. (2001). ‘Machiavelli, Political Marketing and Reinventing Gov-
ernment.’ European Journal of Marketing
Harris, P. (2007). ‘Machiavelli, Marketing and Management: Ends and
Means in Public Affairs.’ Journal of Public Affairs
Harris, P., C. McGrath, et al. (2009). Machiavellian Marketing: Justify-
ing Ends and Means in Modern Politics. Routledge Handbook of Political
Management.
Harris, P. (2010). Political Marketing. Blackwell Encyclopedia of
Management.

Harris does not turn Machiavelli into a one-dimensional character. In fact, he

defends Machiavelli from the caricatures of many of the works we have re-
viewed here, however, he does not explain what Machiavelli has to do with his
own work. That is broken-backed: there is Machiavelli, and then there is mar-
keting or lobbying without any explicit and articulated connection between
the two, that is, apart from the author’s assertion that they are connected.
Then there is the collection of papers published under the title Machiavelli,
Marketing and Management.84 In it, and no doubt thinking about James Car-
ville, George Stephanopoulos, and Dick Morris, all noted campaign managers,
Dominic Wring wrote of ‘Machiavellian communication: the role of spin doc-
tors and image makers in early and late twentieth-century British politics.’85
Finally, Harris also features Machiavelli on his website.86 While not contribut-
ing to the Machiavelli myth, these works travel with it.

84 Harris, Andrew Lock, and Patricia Rees, eds., Machiavelli, Marketing and Management
(London: Routledge, 2000).
85 Dominic Wring, ‘Machiavellian Communication: The Role of Spin Doctors and Image
Makers in Early and Late Twentieth-Century British Politics,’ Machiavelli, Marketing and
Management, edited by Phil Harris, Andrew Lock and Patricia Rees (London: Routledge,
2000): 82–92.
86 Accessed 2 June 2017 (http://www.phil-harris.com/?category_name=machiavelli).
188 Chapter 7

In sum, in this chapter we have gathered together a range of material that

brings Machiavelli into discussions of power. Some discuss power in the ab-
stract, like Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, and others focus on the specifics
of the relations between men and women, among children, or between par-
ents and children. Many of these works are popular, commonly claiming to be
national best sellers, and well beyond the pale of political science, for example,
lobbying, marketing, and parenting. The frequency with which Machiavelli
is drawn into these works is testament to the vitality of the myth. Indeed, at
times authors just say the magic word, ‘Machiavelli’ like an incantation, and
go no further.
In the course of putting Machiavelli to work on the topic of power, these
authors concentrate largely on The Prince. They take Machiavelli’s conclusions
out of his text, where the discussion is often qualified and finely judged. Like-
wise his judgments, so carefully construed in the lawless Italian badlands of
the sixteenth century, are stripped of context, and broadcast as maxims for all
times and places, even the kindergarten playground. This double deracination
from his texts and from his era is what we had in mind much earlier when we
used that neologism ‘contextomy’ in the Introduction.
At times in these tomes reasonable arguments and suggestions are wrapped
in Machiavelli’s myth for no reason. The only conclusion we can draw is that
attaching his name to something routine and even banal, like a case study, pro-
vokes curiosity and makes a work stand out on the shelf. Whatever else it does,
such labeling seldom takes Machiavelli seriously and, worse, it perpetuates the
mythical Machiavel.
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