How to Win an Election

How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines. In 64 BC, when idealist Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, ran for consul (the highest office in the Republic), his practical brother Quintus decided he needed some no-nonsense advice on running a successful campaign. What follows in his short letter are timeless bits of political wisdom, from the importance of promising everything to everybody and reminding voters about the sexual scandals of your opponents, to being a chameleon, putting on a good show for the masses, and constantly surrounding yourself with rabid supporters.

Presented here in a lively and colourful new translation, with the Latin text on facing pages, this unashamedly pragmatic primer on the humble art of personal politicking is dead-on (Cicero won) and as relevant today as when it was written. A little-known classic in the spirit of Machiavelli's The Prince, How to Win an Election is required reading for politicians and everyone who enjoys watching them try to manipulate their way into office.

'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