Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2013First the disclaimer - I am not a fan of Machiavellian philosophy and when I tried reading Robert Greene's first book: The 48 Laws of Power, I found it full of deceit and strategies that conflicted with my value system and so I could never finish reading it and thought of not touching any of his works again. Turns out I was pleasantly surprised by reading this one.
What I really like:
- "Everything is fair in love and war"
This book is a collection of war stories & strategies employed by some of history's greatest rulers and gives you an insight on what makes them truly "great". It is sort of a mini-biography of these great personalities giving you a well laid out picture of their circumstances and choices that worked & didn't work for them.
- "The moment you aim for results, you are in the realm of strategy"
This book is a mind opener as it broadens your thinking and makes you realize certain similarities in your everyday life situations with those used in this book. It makes general statements about present day life and you will find your mind automatically making subtle connections with your personal situations and sometimes even realizing how things could have been done differently.
- Those of you who have an interest in History or like watching the shows on History Channel will admire the way these stories have presented. Although this is a large book, it has been divided into 33 smaller chapters each of which talks about a specific war strategy making it easier to read. You can also read chapters from in between as most of the text makes sense even when read in isolation from other chapters.
- The book is very well researched and it feels like you are reading a summary of important lessons from other well written books on military warfare. All in all, you will find the stories interesting to keep turning the pages and wanting yourself to complete the end of a chapter in every sitting.
What I don't like:
- At places, the book contains fairly long quoted texts from other great warfare books in the middle of an interesting story (specially true for kindle edition) that interrupt the flow and take you away from original text
- Certain chapters are fairly long and borderline slightly boring with too much details which can be avoided. The book itself is also quite heavy read.
