<p>I have read all his books. They are fascinating. Why would they be amoral? As for use, it teaches you how people think and work, whether you want the “power” yourself or not. The historic insights, the clues into how people functions is amazing. </p>
<p>My daughters have found them very helpful in navigating the world. And understanding politics, wars, elections, corporate behavior.</p>
<p>Power of seduction is something every girl should read.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of this. I work at a library for the blind and do requests. I get prisoners who request this book all the time. Never read it and after reading the description I have no intention of reading it.</p>
<p>Why not read it? How else do we learn how people work? And if you don’t learnhowmother think then you can’t protect yourself. Look at dictators, generals, corporate CEOs, they are very much like the peole in this book.</p>
<p>Can’t be scared or offended by that. It’s like saying don’t read the prince, or ayn rand, you may not agree, but plenty do and are like those characters, so reading means learning. </p>
<p>His books are mini history lessons. How do certain people get power and how do they get followers and people to do what they want? How can one avoid being taken advantage of? What if you have a family member who is falling under the spell of a someone described in the books? </p>
<p>Peole have power hungry bosses, and coworkers, and teachers who wield power to feel special. Once you learn what makes them tick, you take back control. And you learn many people who want,power have a lot of issues. </p>
<p>The world is a mess because of people who want power, and this book, while gives examples of how tomgetmpower, it’s not a how to. It’s much more then that.</p>
<p>I highly recommend it for any history buff, any one who studies human nature.</p>
<p>I only know the book because of prisoner requests. I know about a lot of books along this category because of prisoner requests. I’ve read plenty of books that prisoners request. </p>
<p>I have read the description because of the requests. It does not appeal to me. </p>
<p>Seriously- can’t people just not be interested in a subject without words being put in their mouth?</p>
<p>Now that I’ve read your incredibly long edit, I can say that I’ve read plenty of Ayn Rand books despite huge disagreements with her. I read books all the time that I don’t agree with. I just don’t read things that don’t seem of interest.</p>
<p>Seems like even if you find some of the methods offensive, immoral, or unethical, you may want to know about them so that you can notice when someone is using them on you.</p>
<p>(Of course, whether the book is good in the sense of describing these things well enough to be useful is a different story.)</p>
<p>I dont want to break Cc code by posting a link to a blog, but a writer from The Telegraph for the Business Insider, makes it sound like Greene considers his tome to be immoral and even evil.</p>
<p>I havent read it. But I remember an episode of Studio 60 that quoted it.
;)</p>
<p>What you said reminds me of what John Milton argued in “Areopagitica.”</p>
<p>First published in 1644, Areopagitica argues that if one seeks to fight evil and truly be a virtuous person, then he must understand how evil minds operate. One must know vice (and freely resist it) in order to know virtue.</p>
<p>As Milton puts it:</p>
<p>“Good and evill…grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involv’d and interwoven with the knowledge of evill, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discern’d, that those confused seeds which were impos’d on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixt…He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister’d vertue, unexercis’d & unbreath’d, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortall garland is to be run for.”</p>
<p>haven’t read it,but just found a list of his laws:</p>
<ol>
<li> Never outshine the master.</li>
<li> Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.</li>
<li> Conceal your intentions.</li>
<li> Always say less than necessary.</li>
<li> So Much Depends on Reputation Guard it with your Life.</li>
<li> Court attention at all costs.</li>
<li> Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.</li>
<li> Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary.</li>
<li> Win through your actions, never through argument.</li>
<li>Infection: avoid the unhappy and unlucky.</li>
<li>Learn to keep people dependent on you.</li>
<li>Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.</li>
<li>When asking for help, appeal to people’s self-interests, never to their mercy or gratitude.</li>
<li>Pose as a friend, work as a spy.</li>
<li>Crush your enemy totally.</li>
<li>Use absence to increase respect and honor.</li>
<li>Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.</li>
<li>Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.</li>
<li>Know who you’re dealing with; do not offend the wrong person.</li>
<li>Do not commit to anyone.</li>
<li>Play a sucker to catch a sucker: play dumber than your mark.</li>
<li>Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power.</li>
<li>Concentrate your forces.</li>
<li>Play the perfect courtier.</li>
<li>Re-create yourself.</li>
<li>Keep your hands clean.</li>
<li>Play on people’s need to believe to create a cultlike following.</li>
<li>Enter action with boldness.</li>
<li>Plan all the way to the end.</li>
<li>Make your accomplishments seem effortless.</li>
<li>Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal.</li>
<li>Play to people’s fantasies.</li>
<li>Discover each man’s thumbscrew.</li>
<li>Be royal in your fashion: act like a king to be treated like one.</li>
<li>Master the art of timing.</li>
<li>Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge.</li>
<li>Create compelling spectacles.</li>
<li>Think as you like but behave like others.</li>
<li>Stir up waters to catch fish.</li>
<li>Despise the free lunch.</li>
<li>Avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes.</li>
<li>Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.</li>
<li>Work on the hearts and minds of others.</li>
<li>Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect.</li>
<li>Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once.</li>
<li>Never appear perfect.</li>
<li>Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop.</li>
<li>Assume formlessness.</li>
</ol>
<p>ok, I am done now. Haven’t read Milton’s “Areopagitica” either but I think I “get” what freedom of speech is…for that matter, I haven’t read Mein Kampf yet either… or any 'how-to’s" on making bombs. Gosh, the amount of stuff I haven’t read would probably take a lifetime or two to read - or fifty, or a million… ;)</p>
<p>Remember that book “Everything I Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten” or whatever it was called? I didn’t read that one either, I went to kindergarten instead. However, I did learn one rule in kindergarten: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I rather like that one, beats “an eye for an eye” or “fight fire with fire” any day! :)</p>
<p>How will you know if someone is manipulating you if you don’t know what manipulation looks like? How will you know if someone is conning you if you don’t know the signs? </p>
<p>Does being naive and uninformed not make you more liable to being used and pawned by evil people?</p>
<p>I view all these things as observations on human behavior translated, sometimes oddly, into guidebooks. I’ve read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu and various organizational books too numerous to count. Heck, these are pretty much the same as rules about dating. They all offer the same thing: a promise, sometimes realized, of insights into human and organizational behavior. They also offer something else, usually not realized: the promise that following prescriptives generates a result. Problem of course is, as noted, most don’t fit you and your nature and capabilities - and, frankly, if they do, odds are you have real problems. And the lessons one book teaches are generally the same as taught in another book with different words. That is what makes consultants money: a new book, new terminology, new way to sell the same stuff as “new”.</p>
<p>Allen Leech, who plays Branson, is doing a terrific job. The casting in general is wonderful, but much of it follows the tradition of masterpiece theatre style while Branson’s character is somewhat different and he plays it less traditionally. As has been noted, the scene where he breaks down is vulnerable in a modern way unlike what we usually see in costume drama. And his ability to play the tension in his former chauffeur/member of the family/estate agent/Irish Republican is also more modern. I’d say the actor has walked the tightrope that’s been noted. </p>
<p>Lily James also shows promise as Rose. At first playing, she was a flighty, rebellious idiot but in Scotland she showed a lot of range, from hurt to rationality to pure joy - the look on her face as she grabbed Anna for the dance, etc. Again, with a modernity. Her first real conversation on screen is with two servants and she carried off that kind of intimacy, including real gratitude, as though treating servants like people with minds equal to your own is normal.</p>
<p>Therese, not all of us need a book to understand the signs. Some do and that’s perfectly OK. Others learn by life experience. Whatever works for you.</p>