Okay, so this one is gonna be a shout out or summary rather than a full-fledged review of the book and its contents. The overarching message I want to get across is this: If you enjoy self-help content I highly recommend you to read abridged version (or if you are ready for a ride, you can try your luck with a long version) of 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene.
Let me begin by briefly talking about the contents of the book, eventually getting to the bottom of why I think it's one of the best self-help books you can currently read.
The basic premise of the book is that everything in the world is predicated on power. The powerful ones have a higher chance of winning. Power means prestige, power enables one to cease the numerous benefits it brings and so on. To further elaborate and expand on this idea, the books contains 48 laws, principles or heuristics that enable ones that use them to obtain more power, retain the power for as long as possible and use it appropriately. These principles were gathered from the teachings of Napoleon, Tzu, Bismarck and many other influential figures of the last centuries.
Robert Greene is someone is well-versed in history, poetry, philosophy and very educated, therefore, he seems to encapsulate this kind of spirit in the book perfectly. I've only read an abridged version of it so far, which is like 200 pages long and I am more than impressed. It's articulate, concise, with great informational value. This book wastes no space on stories or anecdotes that are only slightly related to the subject at hand nor does it go on a tangent and deviate from its initial purpose throughout the book.
Each law gets its own 3-4 page section consisting of a couple of key points about the concept as well as a short analogy or real story from the past that, most of the time, captures the essence of the law masterfully, helping you to retain the contents of the book much better. The concepts (the laws) presented in this book are simple yet profound. While reading 48 Laws of Power, you come across chapters titled "Conceal your intentions", "Keep your hands clean" or "Despise the free lunch". These concepts are not that difficult to understand albeit a lot of them are rather counter-intuitive, however, Robert Greene sheds some light on them in such a way that makes them look more profound, yet more applicable than you might have imagined. They are no longer only abstract concepts, they are tools you can equip yourself with, tools that can greatly help you in real-life situations.
I want to hold on to the concept of applicability for a little longer to explain how can these laws be used in the real world. This collection of laws is essentially a bag of tricks suitable for manipulating perception and behavior of others, gaining more power and influence in the real world or defending yourself from the manipulation from someone who thinks he can pry on you. Some of them are dirtier than others (Get others to do the work, but always take the credit comes to mind), some of them are more applicable to the real world and others, but in the end, they are but a tools. Tools alone cannot harm or help anyone, that responsibility lies on the shoulders on one that decides to use these tools (or decides not to use them).
So, to sum it up, I think this book is great because of two reasons:
- It's short and concise work that presents a handful of useful concepts and explains them thoroughly and accurately which means that the pure info-value of the books is very high.
- The book has a lot of practical knowledge it has to offer to the reader. The laws are not only abstract concepts, but they are a set of practical principles that can be applied to further your own cause or causes of the others.
By now, you might have realized why I didn't do a full-fledged of this book. The book is very compact and dense, therefore, explaining 48 concepts would result in a long-ass review and in addition to that, the laws themselves would be explained much more shallowly than they are in the original book and wouldn't leave such a lasting impression on you as the original probably will if you decide to give it a go.
Here in the very end of this pseudo-review, I want to take a minute to disprove a common misconception that this book is not for everyone. I would argue that anyone can read this book and learn from it a lot even if they don't wish to apply rules presented in it to his real life. At the very least they will learn something valuable about human nature and, as a result, will be less susceptible to manipulation of various sorts.
Footnote: By the time of writing this interview, I've already read all of Robert Greene's books, and they all share many commonalities in writing style and message they are trying to get across, so if you liked 48 laws of power, you will probably like the other ones.
That would be it from me for now. I hope you are having a great day.
Cheers
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