Niccolo Machiavelli ((1469-1527) lived in turbulent times. Serving in high positions in the Florentine Republic for 14 years, he was cast from office, tortured and imprisoned when his party was defeated in 1512 and the Medicis returned to power. He retired from public life and spent his time writing. The Prince is his most famous work: a treatise on power, shorn of all illusion and any hint of high ideals, it is nevertheless an honest attempt to describe the mechanics of power, and the various strategems by which a ruler can maintain, and increase, his domains. Once so infamous that its author was identified with Satan himself, The Prince is now admired as the herald of modern-day realpolitik.