Hardball Book Review

1487 Words6 Pages
In Chris Matthews’ book, Hardball, the author discusses politics as if it were a game and the strategies one needs in order to succeed in it. Matthews worked with many famous and successful politicians. After many firsthand experiences, Matthews was able to write Hardball, a book that teaches one the keys to the game of politics and even the errors made by past politicians that led to the ruining of their careers. Matthews uses Hardball as a way of informing any who seek success in the political world of important concepts and rules, many of which are similar to or the same as the concepts and rules created by the Italian, Niccolo Machiavelli, one of the founders of modern political science. In his book, Matthews explains the importance of having knowledge of alliances, enemies, deals, and reputations as these are important factors when it comes to being successful in the game known as politics. According to Matthews, alliances are extremely important in politics. He describes how important networking, allowing society to know you personally, allowing other people to do favors for you, and loyalty are in politics. As Matthews says, “It’s not…show more content…
Not only that, but Matthews goes about explaining what one must do in order to become successful if one chooses to enter politics. The books main purpose serves to help newcomers to politics or even veterans to better prepare themselves for all of the dirty, clever, and above all, brilliant tricks that politicians use to gain an upper hand in one of the dirtiest “games” around. What interests a reader about this book is how Matthews is able to make a dull topic such as politics interesting and somewhat captivating. He uses well known figures that have been engraved in the minds of people such as Roosevelt, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, and others to help capture the attention of the

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