Managerial-finance

'The Boss' certainly helps the reader to bridge the gap between the application of Machiavelli's observations and lessons for the leaders of the warring independent states of Renaissance Italy, to today's business world. However, Richard W. Hill is somewhat selective in the topics he uses to illustrate the usefulness of Machiavell's book 'Il Principe' for the business leaders of today. He sometimes also 'stretches' his metaphors, for instance when he claims a company's sales force to be the exact equivalent of a city-state's army. This leads to the impression that Mr. Hill may have used 'Il Principe' to substantiate and illustrate lessons he himself learned from being in business, instead of the other way around. Therefore, I would probably recommend the reader to (also) read the original and construct your own translations.

Beer seems at times to have sopped too much of his namesake. Interesting enough from the historic sence much of what is presented here has roots in other works, including Bertalanffy, Powell and Mumford. Fortunately the work is more interesting than one of his lectures!

The last six chapters of the second edition are an historic document describing a cybernetic dream that brings back hope to mankind

I found this book extremely easy to understand and very informative. It gives you the basic undstanding of what a financial controller does and how to do it.