Customer Reviews

The Art of War

5 star:		(96)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

War is not really based on honor... or glory, or even whose right. It's all about conditions, who has the advantage and how to dishearten your opponents while making sure your own resources are protected. It tells you what to look for through hundreds of various quotes and snippets of advice. This book was not entirely by Sun Tzu, but a collection of famous tacticians through-out history. Each seem to add another element to the concept of how to win in conflict.

In life, you can see a little of this in each day... but just remember not too get too carried away. After all, even Sun Tzu himself said 'A battle not fought, is a battle won.' For broadening your perspective, I'd suggest adding this book to your collection as well as 'Open Your Mind, Open Your Life: A Little Book of Eastern Wisdom' by Taro Gold.

War is ugly, dirty, brutal, wasteful and expensive. That is the reality of it. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Having said that, the ancient Chinese master strips away all the familiar trappings of war - the warriors, weapons, forts and tactics - to reveal the essence of conflict and how to win.

His lessons are as valid here and now as they were in an empire a long time ago and far, far away. It simply does not matter how you are fighting, what you are fighting over nor even why you are fighting. If you are forced into conflict with another, the lessons in this book will guarantee victory.

Brute strength, overwhelming force, super weapons, holding the high ground, none of these are required for victory. All that is needed is a leader who can understand and apply the principles of warfare.

Essentially it boils down to three ideas.
1. Know yourself.
2. Know your enemy.
3. Only fight when you can win.

Do this, and you will win competitions, elections, games. Anything that involves conflict. Even wars.

Sun Tzu's elegant language lays bare the principles of warfare, illustrating his lessons with examples from Ancient China. It is a thought-provoking, colourful and valuable book.

The Art of War is a military classic, written around 400 BC. However, because the maxims contained in the book are so succinct and universal, this is still a useful book for understanding and waging war today. The central themes are to attack where the enemy is weak, deceive the enemy into attacking you on your terms (not his), and the use of espionage to confuse the enemy while gathering information for your own use.

This book is a classical, scholarly translation. I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translation, as I do not read Chinese. However, the translator sprinkles the text with footnotes to explain why he has chosen certain phrases that do not directly translate, and offers alternative explanations from other translators. Therefore, you get a good feel for what Sun Tzu originally meant, especially through the critical inclusion of selected commentaries. In addition, there is an introduction by the author on the history and background of the text, which are useful. There are also some comments on the influence the text has had, especially on Mao Tse-tung and on the Imperial Japanese forces through World War II.

Therefore, I certainly recommend this translation for a first-time reader such as myself.

In ART OF WAR, there is a rare thing in books in which all of it or most of it can relate to many things. If the reader uses some of these war tactics and strategies in the modern world, they may find it easy to relate. Business is war, but in a different scenario than actual battles. Thus it is easy to relate to this book. Even rivals in sports and entertainment can be outwitted by the wisdom in this book. It also adds examples of some actions, which show how these sayings and writings apply to the real world.

So no matter what you were looking for in this book, whether it be business, entertainment, sports, war games, actual wars, or even travel, you can be sure to learn more on how ot attack life here.

The book's age is hard and easy to see at the same time. You can tell that it was written thousands of years ago by what Sun Tzu tells of. (Chariots, gold pieces are currency, etc...), but some of the grammar and language are shown well in the translation in the book, making it easy to read in English as well as other languages you would be able to find the book in.

The only weakness of this book would have to be its accented topic towards foriegn countries, and much older devices. The way to break through this is for the reader to be able to translate it into his/her life.

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Sun Tzu's essays on war make up the first known book on the subject. The translator has done a good job translating the original text and providing commentary. The writing is clear, however the order is somewhat confusing, which is probably due to the translation (it might have sounded more orderly in the original text). Also, you can tell by looking at a lot of what is written that the author assumes that the reader has knowledge of many of the circumstances and events in ancient China. The translator largley solves the problem through the use of footnotes, although the constant skipping between the footnotes and the original text becomes frustrating at times.
While many maintain that the content of the book can be applied to business or life or whatever, I believe that putting it that crudely is quite misleading. The book was originally written for the purpose of war and combat, and that is what most of the book deals with. However, one will occasionally pass through important wisdoms that one can apply in many fields of life, such as the importance of knowing one's adversary.
Overall this is a good read. Get it if you have the time to read it (which shouldnt be more than a couple of hours a day for a week max).

I must admit that there are pearls of wisdom scattered throughout this book, it seems that you must wade through depths of Samuel Griffiths' editorial comments to reach them. While Griffith seems very knowledgable, I had a hard time sorting out Sun Tzu's views and Griffith' opinions on them. Much time was spent on how Tzu's works affected other military and cultural leaders of history. While this was interesting reading, I thought I was buying The Art of War, by Sun Tzu, whan actually, I was buying a book written about the book.

Its infuriating to read so many people praise a book they clearly do not understand when they think its a bunch of flowery Chinese words that can apply to anything and any situation. This is a sign that these folks do not understand THE most important book ever written about warfare. Because of this Western mindset failing, I have to place B.H. Liddell-Hart's Strategy as the FIRST and most important military book ever written--read this first THEN tackle Sun Tzu's Art of War. Together these are THE two most important military books ever written and for the impatient I will explain why.

Hart explains through military history how warfare is a mental battle that is executed in the physical plane for a tangible result. Sun Tzu's thrust is the same--and its not just a gimmick or a ploy one uses by tacking onto a Western mindset of materialism or the like. The Eastern mind which Sun Tzu articulates does not see war or conflict as "good" or as a means to an end. Its in a fascinating way, a view that is more Judeo-Christian than the so-called Protestant reformation-based West's concepts of positional warfare and a climactic battle as a form of a nation-state duel that justifies their existence (raison d-etre) in that Sun Tzu sees the highest form of warfare is AVOIDING IT by deception and psychological ploys that result in the enemy becoming your friend because war is a waste for everyone that practices it. Those that see Sun Tzu as an after-school karate class one takes to be a nice-to-have adjunct to an ends-justifies-the-means run-over-people-to-get-what-you-want Western mindset are "missing the boat" and reading the book at a very shallow, selfish level. These folks are really wannabe Samarai reading a book for quiet ninjas.

Sun Tzu also goes on to show that the epitome of warfighting is NOT "prolonged operations, however brilliantly executed" but the General who can avoid war and ironically by so doing receives no glory or acclaim yet is the true hero of the people and the state. What this means is that today--in the 21st Century with the information warfare means available to us, we can for the first time execute Sun Tzu's vision better than ever before because we can bypass armies and bloody fights and reach the hearts/minds of the people themselves--if we are clever and moral enough to do so. If we think of Sun Tzu as a parlor trick, we will not have the morality to persuade the other person to join our side and the trickery of physical fighting will only yield a temporary victory as the enemy rebounds at a later date. Sun Tzu looks deep into the human condition, to understand him you have to do the same; the way of a ninja is more closely related to this kind of thinking than a samurai looking for public acclaim/attention. A true ninja today would use Sun Tzu to make the militaries of the free world more effective in 4th Generation War (See Van Crevald's The Transformation of War) and use all the customary battlefield tricks of indirectness and deception he talks about if these primary efforts fail. If you want to truly understand Sun Tzu, get your mind on the right boat to China and look deep into your condition as a human and put aside what he says as gimmicks.

I will not delve deeply into the subject matter of this book, as I am sure almost all of the other reviewers have done so already. Let it suffice to say that this is one of the most, if not the most, engaging and well thought out books on strategy ever written. That said, I have read several translations of this marvelous book, and this one is the best I have encountered. Each one states the tenets of the original in a slightly different, but sometimes significant, way, and Griffiths succeeds in making his the most immediate, the most accessible, and the most sensible of them all, which is, after all, unsurprising, considering he made his career as a soldier, and as a scholar-warrior possesses a keener understanding of the principles involved than a simple savant would. If you cannot read it in the Chinese, read this translation; you won't be sorry.

I originally bought my first copy of this book, when I was a teenager, after I viewed the movie "Wall Street." In the movie, Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) tells Charlie Sheen's character to read the book and learn from it. Now that I'm older I understand what he meant. The battlefield lessons provided by Sun Tzu - can be used in today's business empires.

Many have called `The Art of War' a Chinese version of Machievalli's `The Prince." Both books provide a warrior/prince/manager/CEO with a way to think about problems and come up with dynamic solutions. This translation provides the work of Sun Tzu in a good translation, not great, but only good.

Another positive aspect of this book is that it doesn't define what each passage means. It lets the reader determine the meaning and personally apply it to their life and situation.

Give it a read, Sun Tzu does not disappoint and decide for yourself - what Sun Tzu wanted the reader to understand - don't be forced, as some books do, to allow them to tell you what Sun Tzu meant.

Indeed, I am heartened to read one reviewer lambasting the general critical acceptance of "The Art of War" as "flowery". Unfortunately, most Westerners see Chinese philosophy as little more than yoga meditation and interior decoration. Of course, this is not the case.

Take, for example, Sun's "Art of War". Here is a man sick of watching ancient Chinese warlords wage war in a sloppy, haphazard fashion (more as a social tradition than anything else), wasting their populace's resources and lives. Thus, Sun writes a magnum opus discussing the proper means of waging war, from gaining the support of the people to clearly articulating goals to ensuring success of well-trained armies in short and long campaigns all the way to the minute details of using fire (even setting other people on fire). Far from the flowery rhetoric of most Western diatribes on Taoism and Buddhism and (enter your favorite Chinese term here), the Art of War is at once simple and immediate, which is why it has survived for 2500 years.

Griffith's translation of this work is masterful as well. Included are many of the commentaries of the ancient scholars (including, for you Three Kingdoms fans, copious amounts of Cao Cao), which show how Sun's text was used in various situations, both in war AND peace). Also, he includes an excellent introduction which places the work in its historical context and speaks of Mao Zedong's use of its precepts. Also are five appendices, one of which contains the other famous Art of War, that of Wu. I was particularly surprised at his none-too-flattering comments regarding the Japanese understanding of this work (truthfully, I think that too many people see the art of war in the Gordon Gecko, "Rising Sun" business sense), particularly in pointing out their blunders during WWII.

All in all, reader, you will be hard-pressed to find a better translation of this seminal work.