Power Play: A Review of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis
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A book packager asked for a written treatment about six months after hearing a pitch, and that treatment became The 48 Laws of Power. The packager was Joost Elffers. The pitch came from a writer at an art and media school in Italy. What followed is a manual that, by several accounts, prisoners, rappers and executives all keep within reach.

Critics have been less generous. One early review called its argument nonsense.

The Author and the Making of the Book

Robert Greene was born on May 14, 1959, in Los Angeles. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and finished a B.A. in classical studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is reported to have held about fifty jobs before becoming an author, among them construction work, translation, magazine editing and Hollywood screenwriting, and he later worked as an editor at Esquire.

The idea took shape in Hollywood, where Greene concluded that the powerful people he met shared habits with figures from history. In 1995 he took a writing job at Fabrica, the art and media school, and met Elffers there. Greene pitched a book about power; Elffers asked for a treatment. Greene was comfortable in his job and wary of risking it on a formal proposal. Then, rereading a favorite biography of Julius Caesar, he found himself thinking about the decision to cross the Rubicon. He wrote the treatment and has called the moment a turning point in his life. That account comes from Wikipedia’s summary of Greene’s own telling.

Viking published the book. Kirkus Reviews lists a release date of September 1, 1998, and a length of 430 pages; Open Library describes Penguin’s edition as 452 pages. Wikipedia lists a Penguin paperback from 2000 and a CD audiobook from HighBridge Audio in 2007, and, citing a 2011 Los Angeles Times report, gives sales above 1.2 million copies in the United States and translations into 24 languages. Greene’s later books include The Art of Seduction (2001), The 33 Strategies of War (2006), Mastery (2012), The Laws of Human Nature (2018) and The Daily Laws (2021).

How the Book Is Built

Forty-eight laws, forty-eight chapters. Kirkus Reviews described each chapter as doing three things: recounting what happened to people who broke or followed the rule, laying out the rule’s key elements, and suggesting ways to counter it when someone turns it on you. Quotations in the margins reinforce each lesson.

A preview on Shortform sorts the laws under five themes: adopting a power mindset, communicating powerfully, adopting behaviors that enhance power, taking decisive action, and avoiding pitfalls. Among the anecdotes it names are Michelangelo carving the David, the con man Victor Lustig posing as a count, and the French regent Catherine de Medici. The stories are drawn from courts, studios and swindles alike, which is part of the appeal and part of the problem.

Chessboard mid-game on a mahogany table with one white pawn left standing

The Laws That Carry the Book

The titles alone sketch the outlook. Law 1 is “Never Outshine the Master.” Law 3 is “Conceal Your Intentions.” Law 4 is “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” and Law 9 is “Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument.” Read in a row, they describe power as something held by people who reveal little, talk less and let their results speak.

“Always Say Less Than Necessary.”

(Law 4, as titled by Robert Greene; law titles per Shortform’s list.)

Others are blunter about the mechanics. Law 7 advises getting others to do the work while taking the credit. Law 8 tells the reader to make other people come to you, using bait if necessary. Law 33 is “Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew,” and Law 15 is “Crush Your Enemy Totally.” Those two are the ones critics tend to reach for first.

The last law is the strangest. Law 48 is “Assume Formlessness,” an instruction to stay unpredictable and hard to pin down. After forty-seven rules for acting deliberately, the closing one argues that fixed strategies can be read and exploited, which sits oddly beside everything before it. That reading is this review’s, not Greene’s stated one.

The tension is easy to find elsewhere. Law 6 says to court attention at all cost; Law 4 says to say less than necessary. Both can be defended, and the book rarely says when to use which. Kirkus noticed the same problem in 1998.

Why Prisoners, Rappers and Executives Keep Reading It

Wikipedia reports that the book is much requested in American prison libraries and that several US prisons have banned it; the summary does not give the reasons. The appeal to inmates is not hard to guess, since the book treats every room as a hierarchy to be read and survived, but that part is inference.

The hip-hop connection is better documented. An XXL interview from December 2009 says a member of 50 Cent’s team contacted Greene in early 2006 because the rapper had found the book useful for handling the music business. Greene then shadowed 50 Cent for about six months in 2007, and the collaboration produced The 50th Law, released in September 2009. Wikipedia’s article also lists artists who have referenced the book in songs, including UGK, Jay-Z, Kanye West, MF Doom and Drake. XXL describes its readership as stretching to Wall Street figures, politicians and music executives.

Wax-sealed parchment letter with a quill, brass key and reading glasses on a leather blotter

The Case Against It

The harshest verdict came at launch. Kirkus found the rules contradictory, noted that the author never defines power, and said he offers no evidence for his claim that everyone is locked in a ruthless struggle. The reviewer closed on a fork: distasteful if the authors are serious, brilliant satire if they are not.

“Simply nonsense.”

(Kirkus Reviews, September 1998.)

Wikipedia’s summary of the reception adds two more critics. Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford, speaking to CNN in 2010, said the laws rest on isolated examples. Jerry Adler of Newsweek argued in 1998 that the contradictions, unintentionally, make a strong case for humility and obscurity.

Rohan Raghav Sharma reached a middle position in an August 2023 review for the magazine Pragyata, which gave the book 3.5 stars. He praised Greene’s writing and historical research and found some laws sound. He also found many of them morally troubling and poorly suited to personal relationships, and he doubted the claim that the book works as a defense against manipulators. His line that “power in itself is neutral” frames the dispute fairly: the question is what a reader does with it.

Greene’s own reply, as summarized by Wikipedia, is that only four or five laws are overtly manipulative and that critics cherry-pick the worst chapters. He has advised taking the laws with “a healthy pinch of salt,” and has said they describe rivalry among large corporate players rather than everyday workplace conflict.

Watch: Robert Greene on Between the Lines

Barry Kibrick posted an interview with Greene about the book on his YouTube channel under the title “Robert Greene 48 Laws of Power on BETWEEN THE LINES”:

Wikipedia’s article lists an audiobook but no film or television adaptation, so recorded interviews like this one are the closest the book comes to the screen.

Who Should Read It

Readers who want a catalog of how ambition has behaved in courts, studios and boardrooms will find plenty of material, and the short, titled chapters make it easy to dip in. Readers who want a rigorous theory of power will not, because the book never defines the term.

The sensible way to read it is the way Greene himself suggests: skeptically, with the salt. As a record of what some people believe about power, it holds up better than as a guide to what works.

Lone figure in a dark overcoat crossing a stone bridge at dawn toward a misty skyline

Frequently Asked Questions

How many laws are in the book?
Forty-eight, each with its own chapter, according to the Kirkus review.

When was it first published?
Viking published it, and Kirkus Reviews lists a release date of September 1, 1998. Some sources give 1999 or 2000, the latter being the year Wikipedia lists for the Penguin paperback.

Who is Joost Elffers?
A book packager Greene met at Fabrica in 1995. He asked Greene for the written treatment that grew into the book.

Is the book meant to be taken seriously?
Opinions differ. Kirkus suggested it was either distasteful or satire, and a June 2024 review by the blogger Kartones said he still could not tell whether it was meant as serious, funny or a loose take on history. Greene advises reading it with a pinch of salt.

Did Greene work with 50 Cent?
Yes. They co-wrote The 50th Law, released in September 2009, after Greene spent about six months with the rapper in 2007.

Why have some prisons banned it?
Wikipedia reports that several US prisons have banned the book but does not give their reasons, so any explanation would be guesswork.

Where to Read It

48 Laws of Power (New Summary and Analysis) (affiliate link). Open Library catalogs this ISBN as a 42-page Lulu Press edition from 2022, a summary and analysis rather than the full text of roughly 430 to 450 pages, so check the title and page count on the listing before buying if the complete book is the goal.

Further Reading

Pragyata, an online magazine running on WordPress, published Rohan Raghav Sharma’s 3.5-star review in August 2023, a measured case that the book’s research is strong and its ethics are not.

The developer blog Kartones reviewed it in June 2024 and was blunter, warning that following every law would make a person “despicable and sad.”

NPR’s “Power” is an interview in which Tavis Smiley talks with Greene about how power is wielded and misused. The page does not give a broadcast date.

Sources

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