Over the course of history there have been many rulers who have ruled over various lands. Some excelled, others just did the job, while many have failed miserably. The rulers have good and bad traits. Niccolo Machiavelli analyzed rulers and picked out the traits he saw as ideal. He wrote these traits out in his book The Prince. The historically important book is about rules for being a ruler that Machiavelli picked out through his own observations. Machiavelli's views on rulers are correct, but extreme. This is shown in his views of spending, fear, and qualities needed to be an ideal ruler.

Machiavelli's view on spending money is right, but is somewhat extreme. He says, "miserl[iness] is one of those vices which enables a prince" (pg. 95) to rule

Machiavelli's views on the qualities needed to be a ruler are right, but the necessity of them is not so. A ruler needs to "leave the impression that he is all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity, and religion"(pg. 96). These are good qualities and are nice for a ruler to have, but not mandatory. A ruler can just seem to have a couple of these and be a great ruler. Without these qualities a ruler will still be able to function. He can find ways around having these qualities by being cunning, clever, and powerful.

The Prince is an important book. Its views were great for the time it was written. Now with democracy and the state of world politics these views would not work except in maybe a dictatorship. The views in the book are correct, but extreme, especially in the areas of spending money, being feared, and pe

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 556
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)