Review of 101 Laws of Power

It would have been more than twenty years ago when I first picked up the book Rules of Life by Richard Templar, more than a quarter century since I picked up the 48 Laws of Power by Richard Greene, and in the time since then, I’ve seen similar books published with slight variance to the Rules and Laws they describe as being essential.

With this in mind, I wasn’t expecting a lot from a book called 101 Laws of Power, perhaps an expanded treatise on the original 48, perhaps a few new things.

This book, however, takes a different tack when delivering the Laws it describes, it specifically looks to the notion of these laws working in areas where the Law itself does not rule absolute, the prison system, and how that relates to the corporate world beyond.

It’s an interesting read, several of the laws within are very definitely things that I’ve seen before, but described in the context of how they work within a non-judicial framework gave me a greater clarity for where the author was coming from. Rather than describing the law as something that would work within corporate settings, it was presented in context of how it would work in Prison.

In this, the book is more for those who are looking for rules on how best to conduct yourself in every day life, rather than being specifically for the acquisition of power itself.  There are several points where reference is made to the criminals who were consulted in the making of the book, and how they personally used them. 

Did I skip over the laws I’d already seen in other books?  Yeah, full disclosure, I really did, but that still left enough to make this book interesting all by itself, and in that, I went back and re-read the bits that I thought I already knew.  The change in perspective in each one was enough to re-invigorate my interest in the Law.

Overall, it’s an interesting take on how to live, not at all that similar to other books of its kind, probably more useful if you read it before going to prison, but still useful on the outside.