HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. `We have declared before that it is not only expedient but necessary for a prince to take care his foundations be good, otherwise his fabric will be sure to fail`. 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 and expresses the author`s strong and unyielding ideals and beliefs on using force rather than law to achieve your aims. Responsible for the widely-used phrase `Machiavellian`, with all of its negative connotations, his extreme treatise remains a classic text to this day.