Profiles of Power: Philosopher-Kings, Princes, and Supermen examines the concept of “power” in the form of three iconic personifications: Plato’s Philosopher-king, Machiavelli’s Prince, and Nietzsche’s Superman. It demonstrates how these thinkers’ response to power was determined by their investigation of the fundamental nature of humankind, the limits of human understanding, and the question of whether the universe is a rationally ordered domain or an unscripted chaos. Given the widely variant settings in which these men lived, their responses are understandably diverse. But...