The Laws of Human Nature Review: Robert Greene’s Guide to Understanding People

“The Laws of Human Nature” by Robert Greene is a book that seems to divert from his original strategy-focused style of writing and seemingly takes a completely new tone. 

Some call it his best work yet, while others call it a re-write of his most famous book “The 48 Laws of Power.” Those who adore the book regard it as one of the most informative and insightful books in the modern self-help genre, while on the other hand, several critics call it out for oversimplifying human behaviour or the lack of empirical rigor. 

Let’s dive into the world of Robert Greene’s “Laws of Human nature” and REALLY see what this book’s about, why it’s so famous, why it’s still relevant, and if it really is the perfect book for your next read. (With no spoilers!) 

Spoiler-Free Summary

“The Laws of Human Nature” dives into the inner workings of our brain and how our upbringing and personality determine our long term decisions.

It explores the functioning of our human psyches and how our experience, especially in childhood affects our personality and thinking processes; especially in the context of emotions such as envy, greed and pride. 

It uses numerous historical incidents to show us how emotions affect actions and the importance of being rational and introspective of oneself. Moreover, it’s about using these lessons to understand your shortcomings and flaws and hence become more in touch with reality, being able to control when and how you react to situations. 

“The Laws of Human Nature” also delves into different personality types in different contexts. For example, how different kinds of narcissistic attitudes develop in people and how it leads them to behave (Chapter 2) or similarly, how envy develops and leads one to affect the people around them (Chapter 10). 

In short, understanding different personalities and different behavioural cues through this book will teach the reader how to interpret the world from a different perspective, understand the psyche of our fellow humans and change ourselves by gradual reformation for the better. 

So, is this book for you?

“The Laws of Human Nature” claims to be a comprehensive book on human nature as a whole, but honestly, there are many factors to consider. 

Length and pacing

“The Laws of Human Nature” stands at more than 600 pages, exceeding 700 in some editions. Truth be told, it’s actually a lot longer than it should be, as the content is stretched out and slow to the point that it diminishes the quality of the book.  

Robert Greene’s books emphasise on learning from history by citing various historical instances. However, in this book, the case studies comprise of more than 90% of the book and re-iterate the same message again and again without adding any value or additions to the ideals already presented in the specific chapter. 

In this way, rather than putting the focus on a select bunch of case studies in the chapter, it provides way too many to keep up with. Additionally, the explanations are also lengthier than they ideally should have been, hence making any simple idea look more complex than it actually is. 

Lack of coherent narrative or central objective

The chapters of this book (18 to be precise) are each quite different from each other in a way that makes it difficult to actually understand the objective of the book. 

For instance, the first chapter (Master your emotional self), chapter 6 (elevate your perspective), chapter 8 (Change your circumstances by changing your attitude) along with many others center around observing your own behaviours, along with others, which, for a while, seems to be a key objective of the book. 

And then, there are chapters like chapter 5 (Become an elusive object of desire), Chapter 7(Soften people’s resistance by confirming their self opinion). These just don’t feel like they belong to the same book, being so drastic in tone and objective. They are more like sections from “The 48 Laws of Power” (also written by Robert Greene), rebranded and rewritten to fit inside a completely different book. 

For those who have read “The 48 Laws of Power”

A large proportion of readers who are looking into this book have read  or  familiar to “The 48 Laws of Power” or any other work by Robert Greene. 

This specific section is for those readers who have frequented any of Greene’s work before. The key differences between his older works and “The Laws of Human Nature” is firstly the tone. 

For example, “The 48 Laws of Power” and “33 Strategies of War” are mainly action and planning oriented. On the other hand, “The Laws of Human Nature” is more about introspection and analysing behaviour and behavioural cues. 

It’s also important to note that, in both general contexts and in reference to other works, it is a lot more lengthy and stretched out. 

Conclusion

“The Laws of Human Nature” as a book, genuinely has a very interesting concept but at the same time it’s an extremely long and dreary read with inconsistent and sometimes repetitive content. Moreover it is quite disorganised, taking a direct hit on the impact and knowledge provided by the book. This book gets an honest rating of

4/10