$6.74
Details
Arthashastra, or, The Playbook of Material Gain: Pragmatic and amoral tips on how to gain, defend, and expand power from India’s greatest philosopher.
Author: Kautilya Chanakya
Series: Illuminated Ancient Wisdom in Modern English #11
Narrator: Chirag Patel
Abridged: 9 hr 53 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 01/31/2020
Genre: Political Science
Synopsis
Truly radical "Machiavellianism", in the popular sense of that word, is classically expressed in Indian literature in the Arthashastra of Kautilya (written long before the birth of Christ, ostensibly in the time of Chandragupta): compared to it, Machiavelli's The Prince is harmless.
— Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (1919)
Chanakya's treatise, written while turning a farmhand into the emperor of the largest empire India had ever seen, focuses on how to manage an empire, covering everything from domestic policy and personal rights to assassination and the dirtier arts of politics. This is not, as with Plato’s Republic, a work of theory. Chanakya’s guidance is entirely practical, and is based on both his education and his experience building an empire. It lacks the philosophical ponderings and moralizing of its equivalent Western works (such as The Prince, The Republic or Leviathan) and instead focuses on how one deals with the messiness of the world in practice.
People will occasionally refer to Chanakya as an Indian Machiavelli, but this does some discredit to Chanakya. The Prince is a satire, and focused around exposing the tactics and inhumanity of Cesare Borgia. Arthashastra is a manual for every aspect of statecraft, and while it deals in the unethical it does so only because that is, after all is said and done, one of the options available to a ruler.
If you're after a totally pragmatic analysis of leadership, stripped of moralising and focused on what works and how to deal with real-world issues, this is the book for you.
by David L. Hudson
Free speech lies at the heart of our American identity. The Founding Fathers enshrined this right in the first 45 words of the Bill of Rights. But what does the First Amendment really mean? How have views of its provisions evolved since 1791? The Fi...
Published: 10/08/2018
by Bill O'Reilly
This program includes an introduction read by Bill O'Reilly. Old School is in session....You have probably heard the term Old School, but what you might not know is that there is a concentrated effort to tear that school down.It’s a values thi...
Published: 03/28/2017
by David L. Hudson
How has the Supreme Court impacted your life?Can the police search your emails? What made desegregation possible? Who is entitled to equal protection under the law? What are your essential rights and freedoms? What are the government’s respons...
Published: 06/24/2019
by Timothy Snyder
#1 New York Times BestsellerThe Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth cent...
Published: 02/28/2017
by Malcolm Nance
In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the na...
Published: 02/28/2017
by Leo Tolstoy
“It seems a pity to give up what one is used to and accustomed to. But there's nothing to be done, I shall get used to the new things.” It happened in the 'seventies in winter, on the day after St. Nicholas's Day. There was a fete in the...
Published: 01/05/2023
by Karl Marx
The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels' revolutionary 1848 summons to the working classes, is one of the most influential political theories ever formulated. After four years of collaboration, the authors produced this incisive account of their id...
Published: 12/02/2021
by Glenn Beck
In any era, great Americans inspire us to reach our full potential. They know with conviction what they believe within themselves. They understand that all actions have consequences. And they find common sense solutions to the nation’s problem...
Published: 06/16/2009
by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy: The Short Stories includes unabridged recordings of Leo Tolstoy's 5 greatest short stories in one audiobook, all read by Audie Award-winning narrators This audiobook is fully indexed. Once downloaded, each book and chapter will be liste...
Published: 01/05/2023