He was known as the "teacher of tyrants". Copies of his works, deemed must-reads for any ambitious politician or businessman, used to be filled with notes by Napoleon and were bedtime reading for Hitler.
Niccol Machiavelli (1469-1527), political thinker, diplomat, historian and writer during the Italian Renaissance, shocked the public with his ideas like monarchs should be as cruel as a lion and as cunning as a fox, and "the end justifies the means".
Collected Works of Machiavelli (Beijing Jiban Book), an eight-volume series translated into Chinese from ancient Italian, is a comprehensive distillation of his accomplishments in politics, warfare, diplomacy, history and literature.
Machiavelli's The Prince, one of the most notorious political treatises ever, is a discourse on how to assert and maintain power, and notes that it's better to be feared than loved, and dishonesty pays off as long as you lie about how dishonest you are.
Machiavelli's other classic works include The Discourses on Livy, The Art of War, as well as a great deal of prose, poems and diplomatic and private letters.