Sun Tzu Was a Sissy: Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War (Hardcover)

by Stanley Bing (Author) "War is hell. War is glory..." (more)
Key Phrases: Sun Tzu, Howard Dean, Martha Stewart (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A hilarious, thought-provoking war plan for the battlefield of the modern workplace." -- Neil Cavuto, Fox News

"A masterful curmudgeon who causes laugh-out-loud moments." -- USA Today

"Bing is hilarious!" -- Don Imus

"Designed to make you as tactically sound in your private life as you are in the cruel, cruel world." -- Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Corps Times

"Mr. Bing’s humor is ...laugh-out-loud funny." -- Dallas Morning News

"No one understands corporate war better, or makes it funnier, than Stanley Bing." -- Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

"The book is Bing at his snarky best." -- Miami Herald

Review
"Mr. Bing's humor is ...laugh-out-loud funny." (Dallas Morning News )

"The book is Bing at his snarky best." (Miami Herald )

"Bing is hilarious!" (Don Imus )

"A masterful curmudgeon who causes laugh-out-loud moments." (USA Today )

"Designed to make you as tactically sound in your private life as you are in the cruel, cruel world." (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Corps Times )

"No one understands corporate war better, or makes it funnier, than Stanley Bing." (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life )

"A hilarious, thought-provoking war plan for the battlefield of the modern workplace." (Neil Cavuto, Fox News )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060734779
• ISBN-13: 978-0060734770
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #542,892 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sorry ... the hype much better than the fact .... , November 2, 2004

By	Rudolf Spoerer "dowadiddi" (Weston, FL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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 .....

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Almost sub-par, February 28, 2005

By	Lee Mimms "Read It Here" (Madison, AL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Sophomoric analysis without investigation or understanding to support position(s) as presented. Thinly veiled rant against conservative attitudes, wrapped in an "Art of War" review. The best parts of the book happen to be quotes by other people. Most of the authors attempts at humor fall short of the original statements made by people he quotes. I rate it two stars only because there is a good book to be written along these lines somewhere, if only a real author would do the work. Don't waste your money.

29 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should have been titled "Sun Tzu Was A Tzissy", October 14, 2004

By	Charles Ashbacher "([e-mail])" (Marion, Iowa United States([e-mail])) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This book is very funny, although as I read it, I was not always able to gauge when the author was trying to make a serious point. Therefore, I read it as if it was a satire throughout and completed it in a day. Sun Tzu was a Chinese general who lived sometime around 500 BC and his classic text, "The Art of War", is still used to train military leaders. However, it is as much a text of philosophy as it is of battlefield tactics, so many have adapted his principles to other facets of life.
Bing uses the business world as his backdrop, placing everything into a military context. Of course it is all a joke, there are chapters on the adversarial qualities of short people, tall people, fat people and skinny people. All in good clean fun, although like all humor, someone somewhere will take offence. Puns are scattered throughout, many based on using the "tz" prefix as a substitute for an "s". For example, on page 150, there is the sentence: "If the enemy is unprepared, you may reveal yourself and attack, Tzays Tzu, and there is a good possibility of Tzuccess. If, . . . engagement without success immediately renders battle Tzummarily impossible . . " I wonder why the title of the book wasn't, "Sun Tzu Was a Tzissy."
My favorite pun is on page 145. Shih is an ancient Chinese philosophical notion defined as, "shih was the elegance of knowledge, the insight and skill to organize knowledge into meaningful patterns." Bing explains what shih is, relates it to the modern business world and then has the classic line, "Face it. You're full of shih." I roared with laughter at that one.
If you want some serious fun to be poked at modern business methods with an occasional jab by a sharpened prod straight to your pompous essentials, then this is the book for you. It may not help your business, but it is guaranteed to help your disposition.