A prince, therefore, is not to regard the scandal of being cruel, if thereby he keeps his subjects in their allegiance and united... Considered one of the first works of modern philosophy, Machiavelli's The Prince is an intense study on the nature of power and the course it should take when ruling a country. The story is a manual of amoral and underhand instruction on how a prince might go about ascending to a position of prominence, using any means at his disposal - including flattery, bias and force. Responsible for the widely-used phrase 'Machiavellian, with all of its negative connotations, his extreme treatise remains a classic text.