Reading List

Authors Like Robert Greene

Before he published a book, Robert Greene says, he worked about fifty jobs, among them construction worker, translator, magazine editor and Hollywood writer. In 1995, at the Fabrica arts centre in Italy, he met the book packager Joost Elffers, and in 1998 they published The 48 Laws of Power: forty-eight rules illustrated with stories from Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and court history, on the premise that power is amoral. It became a bestseller, and many American prisons ban his books. In 2018, weeks before The Laws of Human Nature came out, a stroke left his left arm and leg virtually useless. His new book, The Law of the Sublime, is due on 10 November 2026. The ten writers below share his ground: how power and persuasion actually work, read through history, psychology and the old handbooks of courtiers, and the writers who think he has it wrong.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Power · Strategy · Human nature · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love Robert Greene, go first to his sources: Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, Baltasar Gracián's The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647) and Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the kind of older books The 48 Laws of Power is built from. For the research behind the claims, read Robert Cialdini and Daniel Kahneman. And for the counter-argument, Adam Grant and Dale Carnegie make the case that generosity and warmth work too.

10 authors like Robert Greene

01
The original handbook

Niccolò Machiavelli

Florentine · Discourses on Livy (published 1531), The Prince (written 1513, published 1532)

Machiavelli (1469–1527) served the Florentine Republic as a diplomat and official until the Medici returned to power in 1512; he was arrested, tortured and sent away to his farm, where he wrote The Prince as an advice book for a new ruler. It argues that a ruler must sometimes act against conventional morality and should be judged by results. It was published five years after his death.

Greene's most-quoted source. The 48 Laws of Power takes Machiavelli's method, rules illustrated with historical examples and judged by results rather than morals, and applies it to ordinary careers. The Prince is short, and it is about states rather than offices, which is a useful reminder of where Greene's ideas began.

— Lisanne

Every book by Niccolò Machiavelli →

02
Strategy as avoiding the fight

Sun Tzu

Chinese · The Art of War (c. 5th century BC)

Sun Tzu is traditionally named as the author of The Art of War, a Chinese military treatise in thirteen short chapters, though historians debate whether he existed and the text was probably assembled over time. Its central idea is that the best victory is won without fighting, through deception, preparation and knowledge of the enemy. It has been read by generals, business schools and sports coaches.

The book behind The 33 Strategies of War. Greene borrows its premise that strategy is about position, deception and timing rather than force, and extends it to offices and relationships. Sun Tzu is terse and aphoristic where Greene is long and anecdotal; the two read well together.

— Lisanne

Every book by Sun Tzu →

03
The courtier's pocket oracle

Baltasar Gracián

Spanish · The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), El Criticón (1651–1657)

Gracián (1601–1658) was a Spanish Jesuit priest who published under a pseudonym, without his order's permission, and was disciplined for it. Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, known in English as The Art of Worldly Wisdom, is a collection of three hundred maxims on getting on at court: make people depend on you, avoid victories over your superiors, do pleasant things yourself and unpleasant things through others.

The closest thing to The 48 Laws of Power written three and a half centuries earlier; Greene's first law, never outshine the master, is already in Gracián. The maxims are short enough to read one a day, and they show how old Greene's advice really is.

— Lisanne
04
Self-interest in one sentence

François de La Rochefoucauld

French · Maxims (1665)

La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) was a duke who fought in the Fronde, the civil wars against the French crown, and was badly wounded before he retired to the Paris salons. His Maxims, first published in 1665 and revised through five editions in his lifetime, argue in a few hundred short sentences that most virtues are self-love in disguise.

Greene's The Laws of Human Nature rests on the same suspicion: that people act from vanity and self-interest and tell themselves a nobler story. La Rochefoucauld says it in a line where Greene takes a chapter, and he turns the same suspicion on himself.

— Lisanne
05
Influence through liking

Dale Carnegie

American · How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948)

Carnegie (1888–1955) grew up on a Missouri farm, worked as a salesman and began teaching public speaking at a YMCA in New York in 1912. How to Win Friends and Influence People grew out of those courses and has sold millions of copies since 1936; its rules include remembering people's names, talking in terms of the other person's interests and not criticising.

The book that complicates Greene from inside the same tradition. Both are about getting what you want from people, but Carnegie bets on warmth and attention where Greene bets on calculation. Read them together and decide which describes the people you actually work with.

— Lisanne
06
Persuasion, tested

Robert Cialdini

American · Influence (1984), Pre-Suasion (2016)

Cialdini is a social psychologist who spent most of his career at Arizona State University. For Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion he combined laboratory experiments with time spent undercover in sales, fundraising and advertising, and identified six principles of persuasion, including reciprocity, scarcity and social proof; a seventh, unity, was added in a later edition.

Where Greene argues from history, Cialdini argues from experiments, and many of Greene's laws have a cousin among his principles. Read Influence to check which of Greene's claims about persuasion hold up in a laboratory.

— Lisanne

Every book by Robert Cialdini →

07
Power at work, from Stanford

Jeffrey Pfeffer

American · Power: Why Some People Have It — and Others Don't (2010), 7 Rules of Power (2022)

Pfeffer has taught organisational behaviour at Stanford Graduate School of Business since 1979 and has long run a course on the paths to power. Power uses research and case studies to argue that good performance alone rarely gets people promoted, and that networks, visibility and control of resources matter more than most people admit.

The academic version of Greene's argument, aimed at people in offices rather than at princes. Pfeffer reaches many of Greene's conclusions, that playing nice is not enough and that self-promotion works, through studies of managers rather than stories of courtiers.

— Lisanne
08
The mind's built-in errors

Daniel Kahneman

Israeli-American · Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

Kahneman (1934–2024) was a psychologist who, with Amos Tversky, showed how human judgement departs from rational choice; he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002. Thinking, Fast and Slow sets out two modes of thought, a fast intuitive one and a slow deliberate one, and the biases that follow. Its chapter on priming relied on studies that later failed to replicate, which Kahneman acknowledged.

The Laws of Human Nature asks why people act irrationally and answers with history and character sketches; Kahneman answers the same question with experiments. He is the stronger test of Greene's claims, and he shows how often the person being deceived is yourself.

— Lisanne

Every book by Daniel Kahneman →

09
The case for generosity

Adam Grant

American · Give and Take (2013), Originals (2016), Think Again (2021)

Grant is an organisational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Give and Take divides people into givers, takers and matchers and uses workplace research to argue that givers are over-represented at both the bottom and the top of success. Think Again is about the skill of changing your mind.

The writer who argues most directly with Greene. Where The 48 Laws of Power treats generosity as something to be managed, Grant's research says givers who protect themselves come out ahead. Read him to hear the other side.

— Lisanne

Every book by Adam Grant →

10
From Greene to the Stoics

Ryan Holiday

American · The Obstacle Is the Way (2014), Ego Is the Enemy (2016), The Daily Stoic (2016)

Holiday was born in 1987 and worked with Robert Greene and as director of marketing at American Apparel in his twenties. His first book, Trust Me, I'm Lying (2012), describes the media manipulation he practised in marketing, including posing as a fake expert for news stories. Since The Obstacle Is the Way he has written popular books on Stoic philosophy, which some critics say simplify it.

The most direct link on this list: Holiday learned from Greene and applied his method, history mined for lessons, to Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. His books ask what Greene's rarely do: how to master yourself rather than other people.

— Lisanne

Every book by Ryan Holiday →

Where to start if you loved Robert Greene

If you loved The 48 Laws of Power, read Baltasar Gracián.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom: three hundred maxims on getting on at court, from 1647.

If you loved The 33 Strategies of War, read Sun Tzu.

The Art of War: thirteen short chapters, readable in an evening.

If you loved The Laws of Human Nature, read Daniel Kahneman.

Thinking, Fast and Slow: the experiments behind our irrational choices.

If you want the counter-argument, read Adam Grant.

Give and Take: the research case that generous people can come out on top.

If you want more Greene, start with The 48 Laws of Power or Mastery.

The 48 Laws of Power (1998) is the best known; Mastery (2012) is the gentler book about skill, and The Law of the Sublime is due on 10 November 2026.

Frequently asked questions about authors like Robert Greene

Who writes like Robert Greene?

Niccolò Machiavelli, Baltasar Gracián and Sun Tzu are the older writers closest to his method. Among modern authors, Jeffrey Pfeffer writes about power at work, Robert Cialdini about persuasion, and Ryan Holiday, who worked with Greene, about Stoic self-command.

What should I read after The 48 Laws of Power?

Gracián's The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647) for the same kind of rules in maxim form, and Jeffrey Pfeffer's Power (2010) for the research version. Adam Grant's Give and Take (2013) is the clearest counter-argument.

Does Robert Greene have a new book?

Yes. The Law of the Sublime is due on 10 November 2026, from Penguin Random House in the US and Profile Books in the UK; it is about expanding perception and experiencing the sublime rather than about power. His previous book was The Daily Laws (2021).

Is Robert Greene like Machiavelli?

In method, yes: both draw rules from historical examples and judge actions by their results rather than their morals. Machiavelli wrote for rulers of states; Greene applies the same approach to careers, seduction and everyday life.

Which Robert Greene book should I read first?

The 48 Laws of Power (1998) is the most famous, but Mastery (2012) and The Laws of Human Nature (2018) are broader starting points that are less about manipulation.

Sources

List last reviewed 30 October 2026.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. Every comparison here is a judgement about method and subject, not an algorithmic match. See more on her personal bookshelf.

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