We continued our focus on Machiavelli's "The Prince," a cornerstone treatise and theory for understanding political science. In "The Prince," Machiavelli expresses his beliefs about how a prince should act. He expresses that a prince should be smart, an adept leader, ambitious, feared, merciful, stingy. If a prince is loved and too generous then people will take advantage of him and that will lead to his downfall. Machiavelli believed great leaders had 5 necessary characteristics that include being feared or loved (but not hated), having the people's support, convincingly displaying virtues, using one's own arms, and having intelligence. We discussed some of the Machiavellian characters in our current book, "Fire & Blood."