The inner life
The 48 Laws of Power
Direct answer
The 48 Laws of Power is a 1998 book by the American writer Robert Greene which sets out forty-eight rules for gaining and keeping power, each illustrated by episodes from history.
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At a glance
- Also called
- 48 laws of power summary, robert greene 48 laws
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- Machiavellianism, The Prince, The Art of War, Dark Triad
The 48 Laws of Power is a 1998 book by the American writer Robert Greene which sets out forty-eight rules for gaining and keeping power, each illustrated by episodes from history.
A plain educational schematic; it does not diagnose a condition or replace professional care.
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What is The 48 Laws of Power about?
Each chapter states a law, such as never outshine the master or conceal your intentions, and then tells of people who kept it and people who broke it, with a note on when the rule reverses. The material ranges over ancient China, Renaissance Italy, the French court and nineteenth-century confidence tricksters, and the sources Greene leans on include Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and Baltasar Gracián.
The book describes and does not judge, which is the reason both for its sales and for the criticism it draws. Several laws contradict one another, and the stories are chosen to fit the rule, so it is a gallery of cases and not a tested theory. The house reads it defensively: as a field guide to moves that may be made on a person, never as a plan for deceiving a particular one.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Power and influence.
What sets The 48 Laws of Power apart
Its design is what marks it out from the classics it draws on. Every law follows a fixed pattern: a judgement, a transgression of the law, an observance of it, keys to power and a reversal, with fables and quotations printed in the margins in red. The reversal sections serve a critical reader best, because they admit that each rule fails under some conditions. Where Machiavelli argues one case about princes and Sun Tzu about armies, Greene offers a list without a thesis, to be consulted more than read through.
- Author: Robert Greene, born Los Angeles, 1959
- Published: Viking, 1998, produced with Joost Elffers
- First law: never outshine the master
- Last law: assume formlessness
- Chapter pattern: judgement, transgression, observance, keys to power, reversal
- Chief sources: Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Gracián, Clausewitz and court memoirs
Often mistaken for something else: The Prince is a single argument addressed to a ruler about holding a state; The 48 Laws of Power is an anthology of tactics for anyone, arranged as a numbered list.
The story behind The 48 Laws of Power
Greene, who was born in Los Angeles in 1959 and studied classics, wrote the book with the packager Joost Elffers; Viking published it in 1998. It is reported to have sold well over a million copies in the United States and has found devoted readers among musicians, athletes and executives. It is also reported to be among the books most often restricted in American prisons. Greene followed it with The Art of Seduction (2001) and The 33 Strategies of War (2006).
Why The 48 Laws of Power matters
The 48 Laws of Power is the book most people mean today when they speak of the laws of power, and it gathers the older manuals into one list.
How to read The 48 Laws of Power
Careful readers treat each law as a pattern to recognise in offices, families and politics, and test it against the cases where it failed.
The 48 Laws of Power in practice: an example
Passed over after outdoing a manager in a meeting, a reader may recognise the first law at work and decide how to carry the next success.
Where readings of The 48 Laws of Power go wrong
The 48 Laws of Power is description, not counsel; turning its tactics on someone to deceive or control them does harm, and may be abuse.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- 48 laws of power, 48 laws of power summary, robert greene 48 laws, laws of power, 48 laws of power meaning
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is The 48 Laws of Power about?
It is a catalogue of forty-eight tactics by which people have won, held and lost power, each told through historical stories of success and failure. It reports how power has been played and passes no moral verdict.
Who wrote The 48 Laws of Power?
Robert Greene, an American author born in 1959, with Joost Elffers as producer. It was published by Viking in 1998 and was Greene's first book.
Is The 48 Laws of Power a manipulative book?
It describes manipulation frankly and does not condemn it, which troubles many readers. It can be read as a warning about tactics others may try; applying them to deceive people is a different matter and causes harm.
