The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli and the assigned Confucian works

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The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli Relevance Today
Written more than 500 years ago, the prince by is one of the most relevant books that we have today. For most of the critics, Niccoló Machiavelli was one of the persons that considered the idea of the end justifying the means, and thus they consider him unpopular. However, he is one among the few that understood power with its subtle limits and uses. While the actual intensions of the author remain unclear, the message is quite powerful. According to the Nobel laureate and British philosopher Bertrand Russell, it was a book that was meant for the gangsters. This underlines just how much attention the book has had, during the five hundred years since it was first published. For politicians and likeminded people, this is a book that cannot be confined in the past as it still has a lot of relevance to date.
While the book was not published widely until his death, the book has been one of the controversial books for rulers. While most of the books of the time were more about the Christian values, took a different turn and stripped the ideals as well as drawing from history. While there are some parts of the book that could be questionable, some others relay lessons for every person that understands leadership and power.
One of the aspects that relates to power and influence is that they can only make a change when they are in power. Once they are out of power, they have little or no influence. As such, if they have to be remembered, they can only make that mark today and in the present (Overton, Silva and Overton).
The book also cautions leaders by telling them to be very careful about whom they trust. Every leader has close allies that they rely on to dispense their power and their duties at will. If they take up relations with persons that are either untrustworthy or out to ruin them, their legacy will not last as long. This also connects to the fact that, as ...