The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Great book. The book I got had a number of commentaries and some letters and other things to get a better view of him and the time he was living in. I do not think I’d like to be a ruler, or politician. He makes it clear that you can only be a good person as a private citizen, if you want to lead, you will likely have to be bad or else you will not be a leader for long.
This is one of the books in Daria’s Reading List that I’m working on getting through.