'The 48 Laws of Power' (1998) by Robert Greene

The 48 Laws of Power (1998) is a self-help book by American author Robert Greene.

Greene initially formulated some of the ideas in The 48 Laws of Power while working as a writer in Hollywood and concluding that today's power elite shared similar traits with powerful figures throughout history. In 1995, Greene worked as a writer at Fabrica, an art and media school, and met a book packager named Joost Elffers. Greene pitched a book about power to Elffers and six months later, Elffers requested that Greene write a treatment.

Although Greene was quite unhappy in his job, he was comfortable and thought that writing a proper book proposal was too risky in his situation. However, at the time Greene was rereading his favorite biography about Julius Caesar and took inspiration from Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon River and fight Pompey, thus inciting Caesar's civil war. Greene wrote the treatment, which would later become The 48 Laws of Power. He would note this as the turning point of his life.