روبرت غرين وهو خبير بالأدب الكلاسيكي يكتب عن ٤٨ قانون للسطوة والنفوذ حسب رايه، و مستشهداً بأمثلة عديدة من الماضي يعكس اغلبها عصر النهضة في اوروبا، و ذاكراً قصص لأشهر الشخصيات في اوروبا في ذاك العصر و ما بعده..
بعض الشخصيات كانت تحت مجهره فحكى عنهم ضمن القوانين التي وضعها، ثم يبدوا كأنه درس تلك الشخصيات و درس حياتهم دراسة تحليلية لذلك كان لبعض الشخصيات نصيب من ذكرهم ضمن قوانين متعددة.

الكتاب يتكون من قوانين (فصول)
تحت كل قانون حكمة تعبر عن القانون، ثم
يضرب قصة ومثال على كيف يكون عدم الالتزام بالقانون (انتهاك القانون) ثم يكتب تعليق عن (قصة انتهاك القانون). بعد ذلك يذكر عدة قصص في من يراعي العمل بالقانون المطروح و يكتب تعليق للتوضيح
ثم يمثل القانون في روح صورة أدبية
و ينتهي بكتابة عكس القانون ثم ينتقل للقانون التالي..

كتاب جداً مُسلّي، وفير بالقصص والامثلة توجد به لمحات أدبية فهو كتاب يرضي الكثير من الاذواق وليس بالضرورة قرائته لاكتساب خصال ماكرة وخبيثة بل للتسلية ولمعرفة اشهر شخصيات عصر النهضة وما قبل الميلاد حتى.. و ايضا توجد فيه بعض اللمحات التي قد تضيف الى فكرك من ناحية التطوير الذاتي. و أخيراً هو كتاب على شاكلة كتاب "فن الحرب" و كتاب "الأمير" الا انه أمتعهم في رأي.

n  n

n  n

n  n

Robert Greene took all the philosophies from Sun Tzu, Machiavellian, and many others and extrapolated them to the current world to help us understand more about the real world and the people living in it. He tells us how to distinguish between right and wrong and the best ways to behave when we are facing a crisis. The only thing you must be careful while reading this book is that you should pick up the ideas that will be helpful for you from this book and try to see whether it is morally correct in your case before trying to implement it.

“LAW 4
Always Say Less Than Necessary

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.”

পাক্কা হারামি হবার ৪৮ তরিকা জানতে নিজে বইটি পড়ুন, অপরকে পড়তে বলুন।

One long history lesson about scoundrels and emperors, survivors and victims. As the popular saying goes, “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” The same can be said about The 48 Laws of Power. The wisdom here is understanding the application of the laws.

I need to read this book to overcome my lack of social skills and learn how to be a psychopathic master manipulator

i learned to be eviiiilll with this book....haha actually this book made me realize how shady people can be. Plus how smart you and ambitious you should be about succeeding in life. You got to stand out in this world. If you roll with the bunches you'll become lost. You always have to have a good reputation or if you have a certain reputation you better use it to your advantage (damn im evil hahaha). This book will expose and teach you alot about the real world. One of my first books i really read and enjoyed. it motivated me to keeping learning about myself and people. i highly recommend it.

48 laws of power , more like 48 ways you can be a prolific antisocial wretched scheming rat of a human being that is more of an animal than a man .

Yeah that about puts it right , well number one problem with this book is that it has nothing to do with power . These so-called "laws" are just some arbitrary propositions that the author ties with some instances from the past . What he does is firstly states the rule lets say for example his rule 
39. Stir Up Waters to Catch Fish

And then he proceeds to give you an instance where someone threw a bomb in the crowd of people and got a salami sandwich afterwards .

He gives you a generic bullshit statement and then he  digs  out the instance in history where that course of action seems to serve someone's supposed benefit , it has nothing to do with the reality of things and everything to do with human confirmation bias. First of all if you want to be truly scientific and the validity of statements and things people tell you are of importance for you the first thing you ought to do when someone tells you something or when you read something is always ASSUME IT IS WRONG . Do not take things as they are , inspect them , bend them , test them , make them come through a solid introspection ,brake them on a wheel . And if they survive , good keep that , but if they falter get rid of them instantly.

This whole book has nothing to do with the real world . People just don't like to see that all these so-called material benefits have strings attached .
They don't seem to understand that people are social animals and lose so much when they act maliciously and unjustly to their fellow man . This book is so foul and so vile I would rate it as  nothing less than an intellectual poison , I can't believe it has such a high rating .

Let me give you just a handful of these and you tell me do these resonate with you and your character and the character of a respectable human being .

Be Royal in Your Own Fashion: Act Like a King to Be Treated Like One ,

Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit 

Make Other People Come to You – Use Bait if Necessary 

Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability

Don’t Commit to Anyone 

Create a Cult-like Following by Playing on People’s Need to Believe 

Disarm and Infuriate With the Mirror Effect 

Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies 

Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy 

Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm Your Victims 

Yeah , look at people as your victims , don't commit to your friends and family , trick people to think they are your friend so you can gather information to blackmail them . Keep other people in suspended terror

Do these seem like the traits for a person to have to be powerful? I read these and my stomach starts turning from disgust .By all  means go ahead , do all these , break the social contract , see how well it pans out for you . Sell your conciseness , your friends , your family ,your obligations to the broad society , your human nature, sell it for a bag of coffee and tell me how that works out for you .

Someone with intentions like these is not a human being and is naïve to think people besides him will not see through their air of spitefulness and evil-mindedness. Every sensible person is going to see right through you , and to cultivate such faulty principles and to go against human nature to such an extent guarantees to make your life nothing less than miserable . 

But I understand , people are ambitious , they seek a way to break out and live out their full potential and want to rise above and improve their state of being , every living being from the day it is born is aiming at improving its own condition. And power seems like one of those things that is so much agreeable with that innate desire . But there is a proper way of achieving such a thing and this book definitively has nothing to do with that . I'm going to leave some words on ambition from Adam Smith. I wouldn't like to end this review without  leaving an alternative way of thinking .

Adam Smith on ambition

Why should the man, whom nobody thinks it worthwhile to look at, be very anxious about the manner in which he holds up his head, or disposes of his arms while he walks through a room? He is occupied surely with a very superfluous attention, and with an attention too that marks a sense of his own importance, which no other mortal can go along with. The most perfect modesty and plainness, joined to as much negligence as is consistent with the respect due to the company, ought to be the chief characteristics of the behaviour of private man. If ever he hopes to distinguish himself, it must be by more important virtues. He must acquire dependents to balance the dependents of the great, and he has no other fund to pay them from, but the labour of his body, and the activity of his mind. He must cultivate these therefore: he must acquire superior knowledge in his profession, and superior industry in the exercise of it. He must be patient in labour, resolute in danger, and firm in distress. These talents he must bring into public view, by the difficulty, importance, and, at the same time, good judgment of his undertakings, and by the severe and unrelenting application with which he pursues them. Probity and prudence, generosity and frankness, must characterize his behaviour upon all ordinary occasions; and he must, at the same time, be forward to engage in all those situations, in which it requires the greatest talents and virtues to act with propriety, but in which the greatest applause is to be acquired by those who can acquit themselves with honour. With what impatience does the man of spirit and ambition, who is depressed by his situation, look around for some great opportunity to distinguish himself? No circumstances, which can afford this, appear to him undesirable.

For a closing statement i would say : This book is poison it would serve any person well to stay away from it .

I imagined Jafar, the power-hungry villain from Aladdin who ultimately becomes a genie, reading this book with a sly smile, constantly muttering, "Hmmm, interesting hmmm."

Throughout the book, the words manipulate and deceive are mentioned in an overwhelmingly positive light. The frequency of these terms reveals a lot:

Manipulate appears 25 times.
Deceive appears 54 times.
Your enemy/enemies appears 48 times.
Your opponents appears 36 times.

I do appreciate the well-organized writing and the insightful historical examples provided before each "law."

The author uses examples from con artists, kings, and queens as models to follow. However, it’s unclear why ordinary people should emulate such figures, making it hard to see how these strategies apply to everyday life.

That being said, if I found this book truly useful and informative, I wouldn’t give it five stars or write a glowing review about how good it is. Those people are missing the whole point. With this book, you're learning manipulation, gaslighting, and gatekeeping. If you genuinely wanted to rise to the top, would you really let others in on the secret?

Now, Can you trust my review? Am I gatekeeping it? Do I actually like this book? Will I use the knowledge within its pages? Or perhaps… I’ve already begun.

Mwahahahahaha...

I've seen many people disliking this book because it's evil. What they do not understand that this book is meant to be evil. And in its execution, it was spectacular. This book is a classic.

I think the world is a horrible place because good people don't understand evil scheme, or can't plot evil scheme when its necessary to fight the evil. As evil minds are generally ruthless in executing their schemes, they win most of the time. To fight it, you must play dirty when necessary.

That being said, this book has enormous seductive power which could transform you to a manipulating mind. Here are a few laws that I particularly liked..

Law 1: Never outshine your master.
Law 4: Always say less than necessary.
Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people's self interest, never to their mercy or gratitude.
Law 19: Know who you are dealing with, do not offend the wrong person.
Law 40: Despise the free lunch.
Law 46: Never appear two perfect.

What makes the book a fun read is that each law is bolstered by historical stories, where either observance of the law or transgression of the law is exemplified. So the reader can relate the laws to real life scenarios, even in his own life.

This is an exceptionally well written book.

There are some engaging principles here that make you consider the principle of power from different vantage points -- This book is for those who already have a strong moral center as you find that the author meanders and introduces you to novel approaches to accquiring power --- often times at the expense of values. In many ways, this book is Machiavellian in scope and re-modifies many of the same principles in The Prince for our more modern age. If you're looking for a short-cut to get to the top and to compromise some values, then this may be the book for you. Otherwise, I recommend books that are more humanistic and ethically aligned.

If you're interested in the "Art of Seduction" --- then again, Robert Greene weaves some interesting anectodes with some of his own wisdom on the subject.

Disclaimer: I am totally a brainwashed socialist liberal (meaning I think power should be distributed democratically and not cultivated individually) but it’s impossible to deny that we live in a world full of people trying to harness power for themselves. Whether it’s the higher up politician that scares the sh!t out of democratically voted in representatives, the manager who wants to squeeze as much work as he can out of his employees, or the man or woman that wants to control every facet of their partners life. I have no interest in politics, management or controlling relationships. But I am interested in being aware of these types in my life and maybe having somewhat of an idea of the conflicts I potentially face every time I step out that door.

That being said, at the end of the day all these “laws” are wild speculation. But I personally find some truth of varying intensity in many of them. Specifically in relationships with my peers and authority figures. As a big reader of novels I like to try to understand some of the power dynamics in books too, which is basically what the author, having a degree in classical studies, does.

Personal takeaways from this book (will update as time goes by as I sometimes read bits and pieces of this book):

1- be patient - “fools rush to take sides” as the saying goes. It can be powerful to wait and see what the opponent does before revealing your hand. Assess the spirit of the times and remember that patience will be your greatest ally.

2- be aware of the constraint of options - governing bodies may be trying to exploit you is the use of limited options. In advertising it may be a simple yes or no with the use of a timer. In work it may be 3 options, none are good but one seems to benefit the choice giver, in relationships it may be all or nothing. Realize that they are tactics to manipulate and don’t be quick to just on options given. Think for yourself!

this was a really great book .it did not stir one fact and go with it .it truly teaches you powerful laws which you can use in day to day life . definitely going to read again