Two Lives Of Charlemagne ( Einhard and Notker The Stammerer ) and The Prince ( Machiavelli ) free essay sample

Compares these works on political and military leadership and power. This study will compare two books on the nature of political and military leadership and power, Two Lives of Charlemagne, by Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, and The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli. The authors of the two biographies of Charlemagne focus on an historical personage and explore leadership and power as expressions of his specific life. Machiavelli focuses on the theory of leadership and power as he urges it to be practiced by the ideal prince, but he uses historical examples of past effective and ineffective exercises of power to bolster his arguments. Despite this difference in the two books focus, the study will argue that the authors take the same essential position with respect to the subject: political and military power can be maintained only by a leader who is willing and able to use whatever means are necessary to bring obedience from ones