The 48 Rules of Power is a compliation of philosophical teachings by a guy who, more or less, spent a lot of time reading philosophy books: Robert Greene. He's not Trump or Howard Hughes or even Carrie Fisher.
I grabbed this book out of the office of a recently fired co-worker and read it over a weekend. The editing is great. Each law of power is about four pages long with tons of historical anecdotes. It's a great way to learn about philosophy and history, especially Ancient Chinese History, European History, and Japanese Tea Ceremony History. Also in there are snippets about characters like Henry Ford, Mata Hari, and Haele Selassi. All in all, it's a grand scope book that pulls it off.
Almost. This book originally caught my eye in a New Yorker piece about how bigtime rap stars were touting this as the key to success. That's cool, I thought. Better than the Secret. The author, even, was going to these hip hop parties and though he looked out of place, he got nothing but love. At some point, him and 50 Cent are to make a book together, called the 50th Law.
So, maybe I could get some more power in my life? Not likely. By trying to follow some of these rules of power, I just came across as an asshole. I need a book about getting by, or being content. "Enjoy the Small Stuff." Sometimes, when things are going drastically wrong, especially between me and authority, it seems that I've violated one of the rules of power. There are too many to follow. I just don't want to end up like one of the loser anecdotes in the book. There are just as many of those as there are winners.
Click here for Robert Greene's site.
Click here for the New Yorker article, though you have to register to read the full piece. If you like hip hop stars, and you like out of leftfield success stories, I recommend it.
Posts
