Customer Reviews

Mastering the Art of War (Shambhala Dragon Editions)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me first clarify the confusion over Sun Wu ("Sun Tzu")'s The Art of War and this book.

This is not a translation of the book The Art of War as it is known by the Western world. Sun Wu, a strategist from hundreds of years before Zhuge Liang, is indeed the father of Chinese military strategy, but culturally Zhuge Liang has acquired an even higher stature. A master strategist in the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang was dubbed "The Hidden Dragon", one of the two greatest strategists of the time, alongside his colleague Pang Tong ("The Young Phoenix"). Zhuge Liang almost single-handedly turned the wandering warlord Liu Bei, "whose army did not exceed a thousand", into one of the three superpowers during the Chinese civil wars of the Three Kingdoms. Zhuge Liang's reputation for manipulating the enemy was so great that he eventually became known as a sorceror figure who was able to summon weather and conjure spirits to do his bidding. For the record -- Zhuge Liang, philosophically, belonged to the "ru jia", or "confucianism", and *not* taoism or legalism, though often his methodology and concepts show similarities to the latter two. Zhuge Liang belongs in a tradition of "ru zhang", or "confucian generals", military leaders who were learned and studied, skilled in literature and philosophy, yet actively led military campaigns.

His influence has permeated Chinese culture -- in Chinese language, the name "Zhuge Liang" is now used (and not archaically) as a symbol of preternatural intelligence, while if you used "Sun Tzu" in your everyday language, you'd be considered pretentious.

Finally, the very title "The Art of War" has always been misleading. The Chinese term "bing fa" means more along the lines of "the methodology of war", and the use of this term often does *not* refer to the specific title of Sun Wu's treatise; the words "bing fa" are often used in the way you'd use the words "geography", "physics", or "agriculture". The translation "The Art of War" probably puts Sun Wu's original work more in the realm of philosophy than was ever intended -- imagine if a book entitled "Geographical Studies" were translated as "The Art of the Earth".

This particular book is *not* a translation of Sun Wu's "bing fa". It does not pretend to be one: The cover explicitly says that it is "Zhuge Liang's and Liu Ji's commentaries on the classic by Sun Tzu". So those who complain that this is a poor translation of Sun Wu's book need to have their eyesight checked.

That said, I still have major issues with this book.

I've never had the chance to read any of Zhuge Liang's original writings on warfare. Fictitious accounts of his life as related in Romance of the Three Kingdoms mention books that he'd passed onto his military successor Jiang Wei, but I had never found these in the original Chinese language. Thomas Cleary's translated passages in this book read as extremely dry, and far too general. Most of the concepts amount to "Be kind to your men, be smart in dealing with your enemies, don't fight unless victory is sure". All true, of course, but how useful is that? Occasionally interesting angles emerge ("to know an officer, get them drunk to observe their nature"; "a decadence in a general - to assess others without assessing oneself"), but all in all, these translated passages read like proverbs, with broadly defined terms. Not having read the original Chinese text, I don't know whether the problem stems from the original works by Zhuge Liang or from Mr. Cleary's translations, but I do know that the Chinese language, especially passages of discourse, are highly difficult to translate and often come across as broad and imprecise when put into another language. There are so many Chinese words without properly English equivalents (for example "Xiao", which combines filial obedience with love, and "Yi", which means far more than just "honour" or "loyalty" could convey) that Chinese-English translation is always a tricky business.

However, in moving to the second half, the "Liu Ji" section, I find major flaws in Mr. Cleary's work. The right-hand man of Ming Dynasty founder Zhu Yuan Zhang, Liu Ji was another strategist who had acquired near-mystical status; under his familiar name "Liu Ba Wen", Liu Ji is known as a fortune-teller figure who saves Zhu by reading omens and stars. He's not exactly known for military strategy in the same way as Sun Wu or Zhuge Liang, but once I'd figured out who he was, I was quite eager to read the translation.

Much like the approach of Meng Zi ("Mencius"), Liu Ji uses examples and stories to illustrate his points -- which makes his points a livelier read. Unfortunately, here Mr. Cleary's translations are often awkward, bogged down by names and geography. This book was smart in including a timeline of dynasties and Chinese historical periods referred to in Liu Ji's tales, but probably should have included maps from various periods. Many of the warlord states and territories over Chinese history share the same phonetic translation ("Jin", "Han", "Wei", and "Wu" all have multiple, disparate representatives throughout Chinese history), and Mr. Cleary's translations of these tales become very cluttered because of this. I had studied the Warring States and Three Kingdoms periods quite a bit, if not in an academic setting, and even I was usually confused as to when and where I was in a particular tale.

However, Mr. Cleary makes an even greater mistake in certain tales by omitting the names of participants. And when a tale refers to "this general and that governor and that other general...", it's linguistic chaos. As difficult as it may be to know the various phonetically translated names, omitting them not only raises questions as to the translation's faithfulness to the original text, but also discredits such tales on a stylistic level -- without the specificity of characters, the accounts may well have been fictitious (though they're not).

On a very broad level, some of the concepts in this book probably can be applied to the modern day. But there are precious few strategies to be absorbed from here that are detailed and specific enough to prove practically useful. Personally, I had bought this book in hopes of getting a more historical and less mystical picture of the man Zhuge Liang himself, and on that front, this book was entirely wrong for the job. I knew no more about Zhuge Liang after reading this than I had known from growing up in Chinese culture, reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and my past historical research into the Three Kingdoms period. So to me, this book is simply a novelty, lacking in the information I needed.

The Chinese have been studying leadership almost two millenia before it became a popular management topic in the West. In the first chapter of "The Art of War", Sun Tzu already recognised leadership as one of 5 factors that determines a nation's strategic success. Zhuge Liang has substantial authority to espouse on the subject - he is the most capable ( and feared ) strategist in China's turbulent era of Three Kingdoms. Cleary has put forth Zhuge's thoughts in a clear and concise manner.

I must confess, I was ignorant that any of the great warlord Zhuge Liang's work still existed today. Imagine my surprise then, in typing the name into Amazon and coming up with this work. Needless to say, the price was right, and so I ordered it.

I was not disappointed! While I cannot say that Zhuge Liang did not lift his thoughts from another more ancient writer (I am certainly not the scholar of Chinese literature that I claim to be!), nonetheless, his thoughts are quite clear on the right (and more importantly, WRONG) ways of leading an army, and indeed, these words can be applied to other situations. In particular, pay attention to the essay "The virtues and faults of the great general", which I think is a lesson for ANY walk of life.

Also, the writing of Liu Pi are collected here, but I must say that the reader probably wants familiarity with the intrigues of the "Three Kingdoms" at this point. Still, with so many nuggets of wisdom to be found, and at this price, you would be foolish not to pick this up, and three kingdom fans may also broaden their own knowledge.

This book on the thoughts of Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji is a must have for anyone who owns the the original works of Sun Tzu. Zhuge Liang's thougths on the successful running of a state, and Liu Ji's moralistic anecdotes tell of the ways to extend the original theories of Sun Tzu, then explaining them with stories from the time, showing how they were put to good advantage by ancient martial strategists. All in all, a superior work by both of the martial masters Zhuge Liang, and Liu Ji.

I liked the qualities of the general section of this book. For those who are looking for some insight that applies to today's world, you can find some gems here. I read The Art of War translated by Griffith and think that this is much better. The commentary is easier to follow and is presented well. The book gives examples of the principles it talks about from The Three Kingdoms but doesnt always give the names of the people that it talks about. So for readers familiar with the Three Kindoms this can be a little disappointing. Otherwise its a good book to read.

To be able to see that main points of "The Art of War" from applicable perspectives is very important. Zhuge does a good job of explaining the the principles from Sun Tzu's classic work and Liu Ji is very adept at showing situations where the principles were applied.

A must have for anyone who has read "The Art of War".

I can see from the other reviews of this book that those who rated it poorly had a basic misunderstanding of what they were reading. It seems that several folks were under the impression that they were reading Sun Tzu's " The Art Of War".

You WILL find differences between Sun Tzu's book And Zhuge Liang's. Zhuge Liang was quite a different person than Sun Tzu. For insights into what kind of a person, you should read Chronicles of the three Kingdoms and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. You'll find that Zhuge Liang does not enjoy war quite as much as Sun Tzu but he is just as good at it(I'd say Better).

This book is decent if you have not extensively looked at chinese strategy. It lists Zhuge Liang's Essays, however you can find those for free on many websites, as well as inside the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the reason you should get this book is mainly because it offers a lot of history on Liu Ji, which is a LOT harder to find almost anywhere, and that part of it is extremely valuable in my eyes.

My review is not from the point of view of someone who is a fan of Sun Tzu's Art of War, nor a businessman seeking ancient answers to modern problems of business "warfare." I am a psychologist, and a massive fan of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and I consider Zhuge Liang to be one of the greatest men in history. I bought this book hoping to get some insight into the psychology of Kongming but unfortunately found his essays to be quite dry and uninformative, at least for my purposes. However, Liu Ji's commentaries were a pleasant surprise, mostly due to the examples given from different periods of Chines history, including The Three Kingdoms period.

The Warring States period Warring States Period 475-221 BCE is a history of constant warfare, of alliances and counter-alliances, and of treaties made and broken. The nature of warfare evolved during the period. During the Warring States period, political stability was impossible to gain by adventurous military action. With the advent of swelling ranks of soldiers, protracted sieges, and an ever increasing drain on state treasuries, warfare became a serious matter for study.

Thus, the opening remark of "The Art Of War" states--without exaggeration--war had become the most serious business of the state, the key to survival or ruin. The author of this and other pithy aphorisms on how to successfully fight a war was Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu scholars place his writing "The Art of War" in the Warring States Period, based on the descriptions of warfare in the text. The book has received great exposure in the west starting in the eighteenth century after being translated by a French missionary. It has been reported that Napoleon studied the text and effectively put many of its teachings to good use. For the past 2,000 years, it has been the most important military treatise in all of Asia, even known by name with the common people. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese military figures have studied it and employed its concepts to good effect. This is especially evident in the military tactics of 20th century revolutionaries like Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh.

The book is comprised of 13 chapters. The thesis of Sun's work is one should employ an army after a thorough analysis mandated by careful planning and the formulation of an overall strategy before embarking on a campaign. Sun emphasizes rational self-control, influenced by Daoist teachings throughout the book.

Chap 1-Laying Plans
18. All warfare is based on deception. 19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

Chap 6-Weak Points And Strong
8. Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

The best translation is the Samuel B. Griffith edition