Why is The 48 Laws of Power on the bestsellers list this time?

From time to time, old titles get a second wind, or become a bestseller again after a long absence. Consider the curious case of This Is How You Lose the Time War, a 2019 science-fiction novella by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone that went viral after a Twitter user posted an enthusiastic endorsement of it.

But how to explain why The 48 Laws of Power, first published in 1998, has been hovering among the top ten local business-related bestsellers recently? Required reading for the return to the office now that it's business as usual? Recommendations among the middle to upper echelons of management? Or is the curiosity towards the book being buoyed by Malaysian BookTok?

Or perhaps some were catching up on their essential reading, as six states in Malaysia recently held elections.

The books 48 laws, succinct points such as "Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies" (Law #2), "Crush Your Enemy Totally" (Law #15), and "Stir Up Waters to Catch Fish" (Law #39), could have been lifted out of treatises on power by the likes of Niccolo Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Anecdotes of when each law is followed or broken are drawn from history – from the strategies of rulers and generals to the schemes of politicians and conmen, lending authority and gravitas to the 48 laws.

Since its publication, this "amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive" work by Robert Greene sold over a million copies in the United States and has been translated into 24 languages. Its "win-at-all-costs message" and the calls to action each law prompts resonate with those who climb wobbly ladders to power, so it's no wonder the book found a following among rap stars, the Hollywood elite, NBA players and even prison inmates.

Dov Charney, founder and formerly the CEO of the fashion brand American Apparel, was a big fan of the book. He reportedly handed out copies to friends and employees and quotes the laws during board meetings; a favourite law is #28: “Enter action with boldness”. Charney even hired Greene as a consultant and gave him a position on the board of American Apparel.

Rapper Busta Rhymes apparently navigated the cutthroat music business with it, and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson loved the book so much, he collaborated with Greene on The 50th Law, a semi-autobiographical account of his rise in hip-hop with lessons and ancedotes from various historical figures.

The idea for the book emerged while Greene was a writer in Hollywood, where he noticed that the elite over there behaved like the ancients in his classical studies. "I wanted to show that what was going on was not new," Greene told CNN in 2010. "No one wanted to talk about how these incredible manipulative games had been going on for thousands of years."

Of course, not everyone is a fan of a book about power games written in such a cold, business-like manner. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organisational Behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, called Greene's laws "flawed" because they are based on isolated historical examples and that "48 laws are too much". One-star reviews on Goodreads called it "horrible", "a manual for the soulless" and "a manifesto for misery".

Also, some of the laws seem contradictory. "Courting attention at all cost" (Law #6) may end up breaking Law #1 ("Never outshine the master"). And sticking with Law #15 might force you to go past the speed bumps placed by Law #47 ("Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop"). The presence of "reversal" clauses for some laws indicates that in certain situations, the laws may not apply.

Nevertheless, it's interesting that this book has been getting attention again. For the power-hungry, or those who simply need to survive the dog-eat-dog world they find themselves in, the book can be an indispensable guide towards gaining power, or charting paths to stay away from the games of the powerful. With the pandemic, climate change and geopolitical flashpoints shaking up the status quo, people are right to prepare for shifts in power as they become more aware of how these power plays affect their lives.