A Bluffer's Handbook to Machiavelli's The Prince by Mark Colenutt

by Mark Colenutt

Considered the 'Koran of the courtiers', The Prince inspired Mussolini, and served Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell and Carlos V. It is therefore a book that has impressed Monarchs, Emperors, Dictators and a Lord Protector. It has also been denounced as the work of the Devil and Old Nick's book has been read by Catholics and Protestants alike, with both religious factions believing it the work of the other. Written to impress the ruling Medici, it has become the most famous job application letter in history. Machiavelli's revolutionary work broke with the past by daring to say what scholars had only previously thought. This brief guide then outlines the legacy and meaning of Machiavelli's politically dangerous book. It will allow you to bluff your way in most armchair debates and also save you valuable time by not having to read the whole text. Machiavelli's work gave us the maxim 'the end justifies the means' and the allegory of the fox and the lion and has provoked a debate that rages to this day. "One of literature's most notorious and misread books." Mark Colenutt

Mass Market Paperback

First published October 9, 2013

About the author

Born in Plymouth, Devon I was educated at Blundell's School and then at St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, London, which was once Horace Walpole's beautiful residence. Upon completing my degree I took off to Malaysia and New Zealand with two friends before returning one last time to the UK capital before I boarded the plane that would eventually carry me to my adopted homeland of Spain.

After a year and a half in the Spanish capital I decided it was time to leave and seek colour and adventure in the Andalusian south. I settled in Seville, which had been a place that had fascinated me from a very young age and I was not disappointed. Eleven years later and it was time to move on again, this time returning to the north but still within Spain.

By this time I had now completed two books and was engaged in a third, imagining a fourth and wishfully thinking a fifth.

At present I live and work in Girona, which is a charming, laidback, green part of the peninsula, idyllically sandwiched between the Pyrenees, France, Barcelona and the Mediterranean.

Not surprisingly, I have produced a collection of books on Spain over the years in The Hispanophile Series. The series ranges from literary criticism in the form of my Handbook to the Legacy & Odyssey of Don Quixote, a provocative guide to Bullfighting 'Spanish Bull' to a city guide in 'Old Seville - the City of Eternal Youth' and even a book of photography and the first in the novel form of a paperback, hence the format: 'photoback', entitled 'A Vision of Seville'. Further details can be found at www.thehispanophileseries.wordpress.com

I have also written a non-fiction history title about the British Raj 'Holocaust in the Raj: A Concise History of the Great Indian Famine, 1876-78'.

Added to the above, I publish a series of YA mystery adventure novels, The Chester Bentely Mysteries, under the pen name MJ Colewood. The first book 'The Last Treasure of Ancient England' was published to coincide with the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. Two more books in the series have been completed an will soon be released. More can be found on the website: www.mjcolewood.com