48 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sorry ... the hype much better than the fact ...., November 2, 2004
The author was right ..... writing this book gives him the opportunity to poke fun at and rant and rave at old actual and perceived wrongs perpetrated on him through his lifetime.
First of all, the book is pushed as light reading and thought provoking ... well for sure it's light reading, but the only thought that it provoked in me was why would anyone wnat to buy this book.
The book is divided up into nine parts and each part has a several chapters with specific anecdotal stories by the author and how Sun Tzu's philosophising would tie into real life today. As well the book is sprinkled with numerous pie charts and 3D graphs ostensibly to support the authors view of the world ..... These graphs and tables I found were the most aggravating, I felt they talked down to me and most are not only outright silly but meaningless .....
It's not light reading I would rate it as struggle reading .....
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Why Strategy is for Sissies, January 15, 2011
This review is from: Sun Tzu Was a Sissy: Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War (Paperback)
In this clever little book that is intended as a reality check on a thousand years of the history of war, the author gives a point-by-point refutation of many of Sun Tzu's most famous aphorisms, about the not so gentle art of persuasion. With great verve and cleverness, Mr. Bing shows us the proper way to go about overthrowing a thousand years of "place mat" and "fortune cookie" level wisdom: It is best done with a hefty dose of reality from the zero-sum game (the Hobbesian jungle) of the Harvard School of Business and the "modern American way of war." As a result, here in this volume there are to be found both funny and serious retorts and vignettes. But the funny ones are not very serious, and the serious ones are not very funny. And in either case, whether funny or serious, they should not be allowed to trump what is left of our humanity?
By the way, I know first hand that they teach Sun Tzu at the National War college (where presumably there are a bunch of staff officer level sissies); and there they do not see strategy as a "throw away" category as this author seems to suggest, but see it as one of the most serious subjects in the officer's preparatory curriculum.
In short, cleverness and funniness aside, one cannot miss the point that beneath all the elbowing, scratching, gouging, growling and the kicking and grabbing of scrotums that characterizes Bing's version of the new ethos of American business and war, the student of these "revised ways" is also most assuredly stripped of everything else: his dignity, his honor, his morals, his pride, his soul and most of all his humanity.
So what is the point of booty won without these intangibles? Is it unfair to ask: what kind of world is left in the wake of such a brutal (soulless, and uncivilized) updating of Sun Tzu's timeless wisdom? Without these intangibles indeed how can any value at all be placed on the booty won itself? What about the grace, skill, honor and pride of a warrior? Are they to be just a cheap ideological rationalization after the fact, as say we were forced to do in the invasion of Granada? Recognizing that the author's "tongue is firmly in cheek," somehow one gets the impression that even during Sun Tzu's, arguably more barbaric times, sacrificing dignity, morals, soul, pride, honor and humanity were not intended to be a part of the formula?
In the more modern "kill or be killed" world of today's American business specifically, and the American business of war more generally, some of us continue to tell ourselves that we are still representatives of the highest form of civilization? But maybe what the author is really trying to tell us is that we have been terribly mistaken in this self-serving miscalculation? Throughout history, we humans somehow have striven to leave a modicum of our humanity intact and on the record - as well as on the battlefield (otherwise of what value is it?). This book, with a healthy dose of "dog-eat-dog" reality backing it up, is an appeal to do no such thing. Its ethos is: "The dirtier we fight, the sweeter is the taste of the booty?"
Beneath all the cleverness, it seems that all this author is trying to say here is that in the world of American business and war, no matter what cards we hold, a kick in the nuts, is always our best play; that our dignity, morals (not to mention pride and honor) -- indeed our whole humanity - is a "fungible" commodity. And like everything else, it too is perishable and is always to be sacrificed in the heat of battle. Humanity, pride, dignity, honor, and soul-searching are all for sissies, period. In this preamble to the new "modern order of battle," everything is existential, and thus is to be left on the battlefield, no matter at what cost. In short, our humanity is to be spent, used-up completely, for no other reason than to "demonstrate" prowess or "superiority" of the ego in battle. With a mindless inhumane illogic and ethos such as this, it is easy to explain why we are falling seriously behind the Chinese and Indians; and explains how our Kabuki democracy, questionable decisions in war, and our business practices are slowly sliding us into the abyss of second rateness? (Remember Granada? Panama? Vietnam? Afghanistan? The Indian wars? No sissies in those wars, right?) Two stars
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