How to Win an Election

Were he alive today, no doubt, Quintus would be making big bucks as a political consultant... Speaking to us from a distance of more than two millenniums, Quintus Cicero's words are incisive and revelatory: They remind us that, when it comes to that strange beast known as politics, human nature hasn't changed very much since then. The past, that's right, isn't even past. -- Nick Owchar Los Angeles Times Two thousand years ago, Quintus Tullius Cicero gave his elder brother, Marcus, an unusually frank guide to winning votes--and, on the principle that democracy's brutal essentials have changed little over the centuries, Princeton University Press has now brought out How to Win an Election... [The book] shows that a campaigner's concerns have remained just as constant as the debate about whether any democracy is ever democratic enough. -- Peter Stothard Wall Street Journal Just in time for the primaries and the big showdown in November comes the wisdom of the ancients, in this case from Quintus Tullius Cicero, younger brother of Marcus, the greatest ancient Roman orator--perhaps the greatest of all time--who, more than two thousand years ago, ran for the highest office in the Roman Republic. ve Levingston, WashingtonPost.com's Political Bookworm blog The pamphlet of Quintus Cicero is filled with savvy political soundbites, still relevant today... Some things never change. gie Galehouse, HoustonChronicle.com's Bookish blog [Quintus Cicero's] How to Win an Election is a quick, punchy, and thoroughly entertaining read, cleanly translated by Philip Freeman, chairman of the classics department at Luther College ... -- John Kass Chicago Tribune The advice holds up. These candidates must have classics scholars on staff, because a close read of Cicero reveals they're following his counsel. -- David Weigel Slate Besides the fact that this small book contains such time-worn advice as 'promise everything to everybody' to the value of being a social chameleon, I learned that sexual scandals were fodder for upending an opponent's political campaign even as far back as 64 B.C. Well, as they say, mutatione rerum magis, tanto magis stetisse ('the more things change, the more they stay the same'), or something like that. rdian.co.uk's GrrlScientist I just hope my opponent in the next campaign doesn't get a copy. -- James Carville Foreign Affairs There is solace at hand in this little book, which takes only a few minutes to read... Translated (the Latin text appears on facing pages) and put in context by Philip Freeman, whose biography of Julius Caesar was widely praised, the letter is cynical, worldly wise, and oddly reassuring. -- John Wilson Christianity Today One of the more entertaining books of this campaign season comes to us from 2,000 years ago... [C]icero's memo accurately describes today's politics. -- Joshua Rothman Boston Globe The release of [How to Win an Election] was no doubt timed to coincide with this year's U.S. presidential election and as campaigning unfolds it's hard not to see some of Quintus' advice in practice... This text has an almost whimsical quality and bluntly lays out what has been all but established practice in politics for--as the book proves--millennia. Prague Post A quick and fairly broad sketch of Roman politics in Cicero's era. -- Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed Candidates, voters and dedicated observers of this vaunted political ritual would do well to take a deep breath and pick up a copy of How to Win an Election... At once a validation of how we humans choose our leaders and cunning in the way of Machiavelli's The Prince, Quintus Cicero's words of wisdom, filtered through the fluid new translation by Philip Freeman, are sobering and more than a little deliciously self-serving. -- Carol Herman Washington Times