For all the readers and reviewers who don't "get" or like this book, here's what you are not getting: It is fact. This book is not teaching anyone to be amoral. It is teaching you how people really are in the real world. It separates the behaviors and tactics of people in history who have succeeded and failed into the 48 "Laws". It is an explanation of power in the only way it can be expressed.
If you don't want to be a deceitful heartless prick who does whatever he can to whomever all for personal gain, then I praise you. However, YOU STILL NEED TO READ THIS BOOK to protect yourself from aforementioned amoral deceitful pricks. I read this book with this understanding(which Greene also suggests in the book), and came away from it very enlightened. Live your life as you see fit, but I always recommend facing reality in its purest rawest form, and this book really uncovers the seedy underbelly of how powerful people interact with one another.

This is Machiavelli updated for the everyman (and woman). Robert Greene is educated as all get out and he puts it out there for everyone to see. Really, the only way you can make arguments for the positions he takes is by citing historical example, (i.e. the laws of power are immutable and unchanging and here's all my examples throughout history to explicate that). Machiavelli really only relied on his own times (Renaissance Italy which of course was populated with characters like Cesare Borge who were ripe for Machiavelli to canonize) and antiquity. Greene, on the other hand, talks about everyone from ancient Chinese warlords to Talleyrand to Thomas Edison.

This book is often marketed as some kind of self help book but it's much more than that. I don't know if the "48 Laws" are the only laws and, moreoever, I'm not sure they couldn't be condensed into fewer, more elegant, laws. BUT, what Greene has to say has caught on in a lot of circles (I read a story about Robert Greene in the New Yorker where he was hanging out with both 50 Cent and the dude who started American Apparel, Dov Charney. I wouldn't consider either of those guys my literary heroes or anything, but it is interesting that they have this fellow and his book(s) in common), and I think it's definitely worth reading.

This is the second time that I read this book and the second book for this writer.
October 2018, it was my first time. I couldn't finish the book.
I stopped on the law 5 or maybe 6, When he started talking about Scapegoat.
I felt angry and I threw the book,

After more than 3 years I re-read this book in English.

When I take the decision to re-read a book. In the beginning, It was just a practice, to read and listen in English .
But during reading Many laws caught my attention.

Some of them are common, even we practice them in our daily life without knowing, like law 10 :
The infecting-character type is not restricted to women; it has nothing to do with gender. It stems from an inward instability that radiates outward, drawing disaster upon itself. There is almost a desire to destroy and unsettle.
The reason is simple—humans are extremely susceptible to the moods, emotions, and even the ways of thinking of those with whom they spend their time.
Some are so ugly that I don't believe that it exists but every one knows an example. I talk about law 16: keep your hand clean.
Manipulate the ruler.
I notice that many of this laws are related to politics.
At that time I remembered a quote:
السياسية لعبة قذرة.
I won't talk about all laws. but I can say that I am older now and I can see what it was hide in the first read

هذا الكتاب بالنسبة لي يندرج في خانة عرفت الشر لتوقيه
أغلقت الكتاب مع تساؤل حول شخصيتي: هل أستطيع يوما ما امتلاك هذه القوة؟

8/8/22

This book is funny, but not as much as the Amazon and Goodreads reviews. You have the people who took it seriously and gave it five stars. And then you have the people who took it seriously and gave it one star. Lighten up, Francis!

I didn't take it seriously, but instead took it for what it was: a bunch of unsourced anecdotes (a BUNCH of anecdotes...multiple per "law") draped in the author's interpretations of applicability. Okay, he has a "selected" bibliography, but every anecdote is just presented without reference so they're just some tales packaged to illustrate a point or three. Some of those interpretations are insightful, and some are...a reach. Most are just stories loosely connected to his "laws".

Greene made a bunch of money selling these "laws" and hats off to him. I wish I didn't care about what I wrote and could sell this stuff.

I hated this book on levels I did not know I could hate a book.

The worst thing about it, by far, is its smugness, which seems to have rubbed off on other reviewers. "Sure," Greene says, "deny these Rules of Power, but you're still playing the game. It's more virtuous to admit you're playing it than to try to deny it." The problem with this smug stance is that this book is incredibly stupid.

These laws contradict each other both in theory and in practice. Some tell you that drawing attention to yourself is the most important thing you can do, whether it's positive or negative attention; others tell you that attracting too much attention to yourself can get you killed, and you should play the long game by being quiet and reserved. No attempt is made to help the reader discern when they should follow one rule and when they should follow its polar opposite.

The "laws" in this book make two assumptions, both of which are as painfully naive as the author claims his "haters" are (which includes myself, so it's personal).

The first naive assumption is that everyone the practitioner of these laws will interact with is both gullible and petty. Greene's "laws" advocate behaving in ways so obviously duplicitous to anyone paying attention to your doings that they cannot help but backfire. Most of the behaviors described herein will probably work on those the power-seeker only meets a few times, because, as Greene says, it takes energy to look beneath the surface, and people don't want to expend that energy. But if these laws are practiced consistently, those the power-seeker sees consistently will almost certainly catch on, and they will develop a reputation for untrustworthiness the like of which Greene rightly says will sink you.

This leads into the second naive assumption, which I think Greene likely knows is false but is relying on to sell copies of this book: that the reader of this book is an evil genius who has total situational awareness at all times, and will practice this book's advice flawlessly. This is not true of anyone I know. It is especially not true of the sort of people who are likely to read a book like this to get an edge up on others. Nearly all of these laws require the power-seeker to be always-on, always charismatic, always vigilant, when in reality they are just as likely to be someone who is so convinced of their own brilliance that they lack the ability to see how unpleasant others find them. Reading this book was like having a conversation with a narcissist who does not realize their conversation target is desperately seeking an exit.

I have not yet even touched on the fatal flaw in the heart of the book's thesis. Greene openly draws his examples of how to gain "power" from ancient and medieval noble courts and militaries, claiming that rulers' courtiers and advisors knew how to manipulate and scheme better than anyone, and that it's foolish to think human nature has changed much since their day. While it's true that the psychology behind the ways that petty, power-hungry people backstab each other remains the same, the situations this book describes are so far removed from those its readers will find themselves in that it veers into unintentional comedy.

For example, see Law 15: "Crush Your Enemy Totally." Greene demonstrates this law by telling the story of two military officers in ancient China, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. The two were rivals, and several times, Xiang Yu found himself with Liu Bang at his mercy and let him go, which eventually led to his downfall, because when the tables were turned, Liu Bang did not show him the same mercy.

Sure. But the applicability of this story, and the law it supposedly demonstrates, is limited in any situation that cannot be resolved with beheading your enemies. Who are these "enemies" Greene suggests that you crush so thoroughly they can't threaten your quest for power, and how, exactly, do you "crush" them? Most attempts to apply this law outside an imperial court or medieval army will not end in glory and power but in becoming That Guy in your tech startup office. Or, just as likely, fired.

This author loves to back up his "laws" with poorly-sourced historical anecdotes which supposedly prove his point, so I will provide one of my own.

I learned of the existence of this book via Noah Bradley, a (now former) Magic: the Gathering card artist who was disgraced and dropped like a hot, rancid potato earlier this week after his predatory sexual behavior towards others in the MtG community came to light. At the first whiff of an accusation, he had a formal apology prepared and posted to his social media accounts.

There were mixed reactions to his supposed penitent position, most negative, but his reputation was fully sunk when previous posts of his were dredged up in which he promoted graphics he had made as (unofficial) promotional materials for this very book, which listed and summarized the 48 Laws. Now those he expected to win over saw his praise for a system of thought which explicitly states that sometimes the way to hold onto power is to feign weakness and contrition, to make your "victims" (yes, it uses that word) think they're smarter or more moral than you, and therefore hold onto your power. Now it was painfully obvious that he could not be trusted, that he would say and do anything out of the sheer will to exert power over others, and nobody remained who was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Therefore by the exact standard of evidence that Greene uses to prove his "laws" (telling a story and expecting you to be convinced), I propose a 49th Law of Power: that following the previous 48 Laws of Power will probably backfire and ruin your life. Honestly, the same happened sooner or later to most of the people used as positive examples in this book.

I have left out the criticism that should be obvious, and is admitted by fans of this book: that it is a how-to guide for manipulation and abuse, and that, even if its advice worked as well as it's supposed to, it is, in fact, deeply evil.

Okay, SOME of the advice in here is practical and even morally decent (don't go too far with flattery, don't annoy those who have authority over you by asking for favors, etc) but those examples are also common sense you could get from any bargain-bin book on manners. I don't feel compelled to give more than one star just because there are a handful of okay platitudes in a sociopathic guide on how to act like a Game of Thrones villain at the company Christmas party.

I read this book for inspiration in writing fictional villains, and I will probably find myself turning back to it as inspiration for writing power-hungry characters. But its advice for real-life situations is typically impractical even when it's not hopelessly corruptn. Half the time, the opportunity to practice these laws is dependent on highly specific situations one is unlikely to find oneself in; most other times effective execution requires that the power-seeker possess extraordinary gifts of intelligence and charisma that are rare enough that there's a reason the people Greene writes about in his historical examples are still (in)famous hundreds or thousands of years later.

At least I didn't pay for my copy.

What I really liked in this book was the historical moments mentioned inside for each of the 48 laws that you'd have to follow of some sort and execute to be successful or get what you want in life.

Each "law" is described as what to do or not to do and then it gives you a little example of it with what happened at a certain point in history.

Tough act to follow for those who say this book is evil and shit. Difficult to stay true to what this book says and just be an asshole. If you're an asshole, you don't need a book to tell you how to be one. And if you're not, you won't be. Even though it tells you what to avoid to do or to get what you want with any means necessary and that means be an asshole to people around you/you work with or whatnot.

But anyway, at the end of the day, it's nice to read about what happened back in the days with some of the most known people throughout the history. Most of it accurate of course, but you know, you never know in SOME cases what exactly happened or if there was anything behind some motives of the people the book it talks about.

Power is a social game, and you have to master it. It is a game in which there is no exit. The better you master it,the better and the more successful person you will be. Smartness is about not to opear too power hungry and in the same time to have no power over people and events.
To help us master the keys of power, the book provides 48 laws. Truthfully, the book is very well-organized and clearly aimed. The book's methodology is as follow:
-Law
-Judgment
- Observance of the law,in which it contains real life examples
-Interpretation (explanation for the examples, what we get from it and what we should do)
-An image and a proverb that is applicable to the law (as a way of preserving the law)
The good new is that there are many of the laws and ideas helps us be quite powerful and successful. They are logical and should be included in our laws, principles and traditions
For example:
-Tackling the idea of mastering your emotions
-Dealing with the past "Half of the game is learning to forget those events in the past that eat away at you and cloud your reason.The real purpose at the backward-glancing eye is to educate yourself constantly"
-How to deal with your superiors (which was very well-tackled -law 1)
-How to transform weakness into power
-How to recreate yourself
-How to treat others

The bad news is Greene is so much influenced by Machiavelli. All over the book, the reader feels this Machiavellian soul. If Machiavelli gave advises to the ruler (or the prince) in the form of a book. Greene advises to the ordinary people. so it's like "The prince 2" And as we all know, Machiavelli's main principal in life is "the Ends justifies the means". Greene adopted this principle. Unfortunately, Most the majority of the laws is against morals and religions. Greene's ideas are well, shocking. It makes or he already thinks it is a war in which all is against all. A psychological war. They will make the world worse,or let me put it in an another words,the world which is already evil will be more evil. Here are examples to clarify what I mean:
-"surround your name with the sensational and scandalous..do anything to make yourself seem larger than life"
-"By pretending to bare your heart to another person,in other words, you make them more likely to reveal their own secrets..they will reveal all kinds of truths about themselves,truths you can later use against them"
-Law 15; "Crush your enemy totally"
-"Playing people against one another, making them pursue you"
Better name this book "How to be a bastard ( or a scoundrel -as you like) in a few days" There is a thin line between being powerful while respecting morals and immorality powerful, this book failed this issue. The point is I can have the keys of power and gain the heaven.
The 48 laws of power is a sly and an odd book. It's very well-written and contains a lot of rich examples. It consumes a lot of effort, time and concentration, so if you decided to read it, you should dedicate a whole month to reading it only. I have spent about 20 days reading this book and they weren't enough. Some of the laws and ideas were being repeated all over the book. It's an irreplaceable guide to any politician,since in its heart politics is about power.

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." ( Matthew 10:16)

“Play a sucker to catch a sucker”

This book is controversial. Some people call it immoral, evil, a Bible for psychopaths. In few US prisons, the book is banned. In other prisons — it's the most requested book. Despite the disapproval by a few, it's a national bestseller. It teaches you to play the game of life. Ruthlessly.

The author’s laws for attaining power are straightforward. Lie. Pretend. Manipulate. He explains why, how and gives intriguing examples. In his examples, the historical figures have either succeeded or failed in applying the laws.

It's not a book to strengthen your morals. Power is superiority, and the pursuit of superiority is inherently amoral. The author is not malicious, he is a realist. If your goal is to be powerful, honesty is something you can only pretend to have.

But the greatest value of the book is not in the personal use of power. It makes it harder for others to trick you. Seductive partners, politicians, or salesmen exploit the weaknesses of human nature. By being aware of how it's done, you won't become a “sucker”.

“Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define if for you.”

This was an odd read -- not exactly something you'd read for fun, unless you were aspiring to become President or something. However, it was insanely interesting in a Machiavellian sort of way. Each of the 48 Laws of Power is separated into a separate chapter, with examples of people throughout history who have broken the law (and died in gruesome and terrible ways as a result) or who followed the law (and became Kings and Emperors and all around Super People).

What this book is not:
A Guide to Morality
A Nice Guy's Guide to Getting Ahead
An Every Day Person's Guide to Getting Along With Others

Everything about this book is about how the ends justify the means -- how to lie, steal, and cheat your way to the top while appearing to be less intelligent, more friendly, and more honest than you really are.

Some people read it so they don't fall victim to people using power against them. I read it as inspiration for writing villains in my novels.

My favorite chapter is the one on How To Build a Cult-Like Following. Really, I found many of the laws quite amusing. It gets 5 stars because it is well-researched, the examples from history are fascinating, and it held my interest despite my disagreement with the underlying principles. I would only recommend it to the most discerning reader though, someone who would not be seduced into a false life by the promises of rank and wealth.

Too long for my liking. But great strategies to gain power.

Making a show of one's weakness is actually a very effective strategy, subtle and deceptive, in the game of power. The use of honesty is indeed a power strategy, intended to convince people of one's noble, good hearted, selfless character. It is a form of persuasion, even a subtle form of coercion. We humans have two contrary selves within us - a lower and a higher. The lower tends to be stronger. It impulses pull us down into emotional reactions and defensive postures, making us feel self righteous and superior to others. It makes us grab for immediate pleasures and distractions, always taking the path of least resistance. It induces us to adapt what other people are thinking, losing ourselves in the group.

We feel the impulses of the higher self when we are drawn out of ourselves, wanting to connect more deeply with others, to absorb our minds in our work, to think instead of react, to follow our own path in life and to discover what makes us unique. The lower is the more animal and reactive side of our nature, and one that we easily slip into. The higher is the more truly human side of our nature, the side that makes us thoughtful and self-aware. Because the higher impulse is weaker, connecting to it requires effect and insight.

Most people are open books. They say what they feel, say out their opinions at every opportunity and constantly reveal their plans and intentions.
1) It is easy and natural to always want to talk about one's feelings and plans for the future. It takes effort to control your tongue and monitor what you reveal.
2) Many believe that by being honest and open they are winning people's hearts and showing their good nature.
By being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions. The pattern is powerful in that it deceives the other person into expecting the opposite of what you are really doing. People feel superior to the person whose actions they can predict. If you show them who is in control by playing against their expectations, you both gain their respect and tighten your hold on their fleeting attention.

An air of mystery can make the mediocre appear intelligent and profound. If you find yourself trapped, cornered and on the defensive on some situation, try a simple experiment: do something that cannot be easily explained or interpreted. Choose a simple action, but carry it out in a way that unsettles your opponent, a way with many possible interpretation making your intentions obscure. Do not let your air of mystery be slowly transformed into a reputation of deceit. Learn to use the knowledge of the past and you will look like a genius, even when you are really just a clever borrower. The essence of power is the ability to keep the initiative, to get others to react to your moves, to keep your opponent and those around you on the defensive.

Two things must happen to place you in this position: you yourself must learn to master your emotions and never to influenced by anger; meanwhile however you must play on people's natural tendency to react angrily when pushed and baited. In the long run, the ability to make others come to you is a weapon far more powerful than any tool of aggression. When you suspect you are in the presence of an inferior, don't argue, don't try to help, don't pass the person on to your friends or you will become enmeshed. Flee the inferior's presence or suffer the consequences. Never associate with those who share your defects - they will reinforce everything that holds you back. Only create associations with positive affinities.

The ultimate power is the power to get people to do as you wish. The ultimate power is the power to do as you wish. When you can do this without having to force people or hurt them, when they willingly grant you what you desire, then your power is untouchable. The best way to achieve this position is to create a relationship of dependence. Do not be one of the many who mistakenly believe that the ultimate form of power is independence. Self interest is the lever that will move people. Once you make them see how you can in some way meet their needs or advance their cause, their resistance to your requests for help will magically fall away.

At each step on the way to acquire power, you must train yourself to think your way inside the other person's mind to see their needs and interests, to get rid of the screen of your feelings that obscure the truth. Master this act and there will be no limits to what you can accomplish. Everything in the world depends on absence and presence. A strong presence will draw power and attention to you - you shine more brightly than those around you. But a point is inevitably reached where too much presence creates the opposite effect: the more you are seen and heard from the more your value degrades. You become a habit. No matter how hard you try to be different, subtly without your knowing why, people respect you less and less. At the right moment you must learn to withdraw yourself before they unconsciously push you away. It is a game of hide and seek.

The ability to measure people and to know who you're dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power. Without it you are blind: not only you will offend the wrong people, you will choose the wrong types to work on and will think you are flattering people when are actually insulting them. Power greatly depends on appearances, so you must learn the tricks that will enhance your image. Refusing to commit to a person or group is one of these. When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. This aura of power only grows with time: as your reputation for independence grows, more and more people will come to desire you, wanting to be the one who gets you to commit.

If there is something unpleasant or unpopular that needs to be done, it is far too risky for you to do the work yourself. You need a cat's paw - someone who does the dirty and dangerous work for you. The cat's paw grabs what you need, hurts whom you need hurt, and keeps people from noticing that you are the one responsible. Let someone be the executioner, or the bearer of bad news while you bring only joy and glad tidings. Truly powerful people keep their hands clean. Only good things surround them and the only announcements they make are of glorious achievements. People are not interested in the truth about change. They do not want to hear that it has come from hard work, or from anything as banal as exhaustion, boredom or depression, they are dying to believe in something romantic, otherworldly.

The want to hear of angels and out of body experiences. Indulge them. Hint at the mystical source of some personal change, wrap it up in ethereal colors and a cultlike following will form around you. Boldness should never be the strategy behind all your actions. It is a tactical instrument to be used at the right movement. Plan and think ahead and make the final element the bold move that will bring you success. As a person of power, you must research and practice endlessly before appearing in public, onstage or anywhere else. Never expose the sweat and labor behind your poise. Some think such exposure will demonstrate their diligence and honesty, but it actually makes them look weaker - as if anyone who practiced and worked for it could do what they had done or as if they weren't really up to the job.

Keep your effort and your tricks to yourself and you seem to have the grace and ease of God. Leaders who try to dissolve that distance through a false chumminess gradually lose the ability to inspire loyalty, fear or love. When you force the pace out of fear and impatience, you create a nest of problems that require fixing and you end up taking much longer than if you had taken your time. Sour grapes approach - if there is something you want but that you realize you cannot have, the worst thing you can do is draw attention to your disappointment by complaining about it. An infinitely more powerful tactic is to act as if it never really interested you in the first place.

When you are attacked by an inferior, deflect people's attention by making it clear that the attack was never registered. Look away or answer sweetly, showing how little the attack concerns you. Similarly, when you yourself have committed a blunder, the best response is often to make less of your mistake by treating it lightly. Never show that something has affected you, or that you are offended - that only shows you have acknowledged a problem. Your search for power depends on shortcuts. You must always circumvent people's suspicions, their perverse desire to resist your will. To show your frustration is to show that you have lost your power to shape events; the powerful never reveal this kind of weakness.

Powerful people judge everything by what it costs not just in money but in time, dignity and peace of mind. Money has to circulate to bring power. To give a gift is to imply that you and recipients are equal at the very least or that you are the recipient's superior. The mirror reflects reality but it is also the perfect tool for deception: when you mirror your enemies, doing as they do, they cannot figure our your strategy. The mirror effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson. In the moral effect, you mirror what other have done to you, and do so in a way that makes them realize you are doing to them exactly what they did to you. The fact that the past is dead and buried gives you the freedom to reinterpret it. To support your cause, tinker with the facts. The past is a test in which you can safely insert your own lines.

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This was a very good book. I found it very interesting and informative. I thought that this was a really interesting book because of the historical references and the explanations of them.

I don’t get how people say that this is a bible for being a psychopath. It states multiple times in the book that if you use it, you’ll most likely lose power and even if you can hold onto it, it will leave you soulless. It’s to inform you on how some people can act and manipulate you, not how to manipulate others.

If you do not keep an open mind about the contents of this book, it will come across as selfish, brutal and downright ruthless. But all said and done it is very pragmatic a book. In here I found 48 ways of looking at what the author thought are principles that made and kept people in power.

Peel away the historic significances and the anecdotes and these are things you see around you : in corporate boardrooms, news networks and the political circus all carry these lessons through them. Robert Greene seems to have relied upon varied sources and the reference that has gone into this book is quite huge. Footnotes carry quotes from Sun Tzu, Kautilya, Machiavelli, Baltasar Gracian and many others whom we have all come to regard as Military & Political strategists . These footnotes are probably the highlights of this book for they offer what can rightly be called as food for thought.

Never make the mistake of applying these directly in your sphere of influence for it's a guarantee that you will get the boot in no time. It is as devious as it comes and for sure you will note the subtlety with which people you see and know apply this in various spheres of life. All Robert Greene did was to put them in words !!!