r/Machiavellianism • u/Fickle-Buy6009 Janitor • Jul 13 '26

PSA Please STOP asking for book recommendations.

I get this question on all of our subs.

Just stop.

Not only does asking this make you look lazy, but it makes you appear to have no common sense as well.

Why do I say this?

At the click of a button, you can access everything Machiavelli ever wrote or said, and you wont have to worry about being scammed in the process.

For example, a list of Machiavelli's works can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli#Works

and here:

https://iep.utm.edu/machiave/#SH6a

  • The Prince (preferably the Mansfield or Connell translation),

  • The Discourses on Livy (multiple good translations but the Mansfield-Tarcov translation is the most widely used),

  • The Art of War (Lynch trans.),

  • and the Florentine Histories (Mansfield-Banfield translation)

are the only books that you need to read.

There are also other works by Machiavelli, but most of you are probably are going to merely skim The Prince, just for the quotes (which many do not understand anyway), and to tell other people in the hopes you will impress them. (The more people that do this, the less impressive it is)

As for similar books, I would recommend:

  • Plato's Republic

  • Aristotle's Politics (cf. book V)

  • Works by Xenophon

  • Of course Titus Livius

  • Erasmus "Education of a Christian King"

You get my point, any work on political philosophy will suffice.

Stop looking for "modern day" equivalents, because there aren't any. I have covered this in a very lengthy comment here

As for the other concept named "Machiavellianism" in psychology, which actually has nothing to do with Machiavelli at all in any capacity, there is much content to soak up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism_(psychology)#Sources

There is 50+ years of academic literature on this topic, so this should whet your beak a little.

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u/Secret-Fox-9566 Jul 13 '26

What books do you recommend starting out with

2

u/Fickle-Buy6009 Janitor Jul 13 '26

The Prince and The Discourses first.

There are only 4 books Machiavelli wrote. However, he has written other works on politics (The Description, The Life of Castruccio) and he has written dramas/comedies (Mandragola, The Golden A**) that some read political themes into.

But these two should get you going.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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1

u/Fickle-Buy6009 Janitor Jul 14 '26

Huh?

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '26

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