Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are As Timely And Important Today As Five Centuries Ago

American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael A. Ledeen sees the same parallels today between human nature, power, and the state of our institutions that venerable Renaissance writer Niccolò Machiavelli established and expounded upon in Italy nearly 500 years earlier. In Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, he examines a variety of political, religious, economic, and even athletic leaders from the last days of the 20th century according to the exceptional tenets originally laid out in classic works such as The Prince and The Discourses.

His purpose now, Ledeen writes, is essentially the same as his subject's was then: "to present the basic principles of the proper and successful use of power in language that contemporary leaders can understand, the better to advance the common good." Although somewhat brief at less than 200 pages, this spirited book nonetheless manages to measure successfully the characters of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ted Turner, Caspar Weinberger, Colin Powell, Yasir Arafat, and many others against the exceedingly rigorous (and often controversial) standards set by one of the most enduring of all leadership theorists. Despite following a string of moral philosophers and political analysts who have previously produced extensive material on both the man and his ideas, Ledeen shows in a fresh way precisely why Machiavelli's precepts remain as valid as when they were first penned. --Howard Rothman