Customer Reviews

The Art of War

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

 

 

This book is absolutely brilliant, and reading it is a tremendous experience. Sun Tzu is the master, and the Art of War, though aimed specifically on military warfare, is a masterpiece on general strategy and tactics that can be used in many sitautions. In fact, I will bet you that many of the most succesful sports coaches, boxers, businessmen, ploiticians, etc use tactics similar to those found in this book.

The Art of War is not a long book, but despite its size, it is totally packed with content. Some themes of the book include

- always ensuring you are prepared

- adapting and responding to circumstances

- knowing yourself, the enemy, and the environment

- being unpredictable, secretive, and deceptive

- making calculations

- exploiting opportunities

- avoiding your enemy's strengths, and attacking his weak spots

- causing disorder among your enemy

- using baits to manipulate others

- ensuring good teamwork through picking the right people to do the right job, good communication, and synergy

- knowing when to fight and when not to fight

The book is an absolute gem. It is invaluable and a must read. Sun Tzu has a beatiful style, and I really love the Lionel Giles translation, which although old, is still hihgly readable and among the best there is. I also recommend Rodney Ohebsion's tranlsation and selection and arrangement of passages, which is an adaptation of the Giles translation, and is in the book A Collection of Wisdom.

In summary, I would just like to say that The Art of War is definitely one of the greatest texts ever written, and is a must for the student of life.

The book came quickly and was in great condition. I have not had a chance to read it yet so I am not informed of the content.

Whoever says this book cannot be applied for today, is a complete idiot.

Human Nature never changes, therefore War strategies never change.

They do not understand the book, never have been in the military, or never held an officer position in the military. It is a very difficult book because it goes to the core of human nature.

They said Sun Tzu could not be applied in Vietnam, but it was, and in Afghanistan against the Americans and the Russians. Afghanistans were only conquered by the Sikhs of India, whereby they gained the support of the population and the emperor(only one), tolerated all faiths like Sulueman in Turkey and the beginning of the Ottoman Empire.

It is a very difficult book, that is for sure.

Old but still relevant. If you want spmething entertaining then it's the right book for you. Nothing very surprising in the content though.

Though this book is rather old, it tells of strategies for team leadership that can be employed in todays society. It is a book detailing great planning and strategy of wartime. It discusses the role of leaders and how they should handle their troops. This information is useful when applied to managing one's own team. When managing a group of workers in a workplace, one must view them as an "army" so to speak who will work together for the greater good of accomplishing a goal. Sunzi's work gives very explicit directions on how to do this.

Written long before MBA programmes and graduate schools of management were formed, this book is often considered THE authority on managing people and competitive situations. Sun Tzu was a remarkably insightful man, who seems to have captured the psychology of combat and running a team. So many of the principles he espouses are applicable in civilian life that it is worth reading by anybody managing people. There are sections in the book that deal very specifically with fighting (especially the discussions on terrain), but many of the other chapters could replace the word 'army' with 'team' and the meaning would be the same. Whilst many of the lessons appear simplistic and obvious, experience tells us that sometimes common sense is not so common. Sometimes concepts need to be presented in a simplified fashion for their full power to be revealed. I think that any person either training to be a leader or is already one (military or civilian) should read this book and ponder it's meaning.

The Art of War was originally intended for reading by ancient China's ruling military elite, and not lowly commoners such as us. It is one of the few great books people seem to be universally familiar with, and for good reason.

The struture is blindingly simple - Sun Tzu writes short chapters about different areas of battle which consist of simple dictums. Utterly straightforward, and generalisable to any form of conflict.

Surface-reading this book will take you minutes, not hours - however, time must be spent with even the barest of his principles. The purchase of this book has become alarmingly trendy over recent years, but with no noticeable effect on the global intelligence of its middle manager market. Books like this do not read themselves.

A more accurate edition would have gained 5 stars without a second thought. The fact that much better versions are available (and freesource!) holds this version back.

Fast shipping. Good seller.I got the product right away. Fast delivery.I wanted to read this book for a long time.

Even though this book was written over 2000 years ago, many of these tactics (many of whom I find are common sense) still apply today.

Unfortunately, I found the book was at times confusing to read and wondered a bit. This is really written like an instructional book, something I did not expect and most likely the reason why I didn't like the reading. This is a good book to read but paying $7.50 for it (I paid $3) is not worth it and you could find other books out there that contain much more information.

Kevin

"The Art of War" is a book that any Wall Street dealmaker needs to read. It also is obvious that the true lessons of this book demonstrate precisely why George Bush was as right as rain when he went into Afghanistan and Iraq. Sun Tzu writes not about popularity but strength and victory. I would much rather America be strong and in control, winning the War on Terror as we are, than a crippled giant, which is the way many countries might like us - until our crippled condition makes it harder to defend them from obliteration as we have doner many times. I'll take respect over love in when it comes to geo-politics.