Politicians have the reputation of being power-hungry manipulators. What you might not know is that the image of the modern politician may actually have roots in the 500-year-old document called "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli. "The Prince" is a political treatise describing the less-than-honorable but all-too-realistic methods politicians (still) use to secure their power.

Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" within two years after he was driven from office. A surviving letter indicates that the first title for it was "On Principalities." The work was not published until 1532.