Customer Reviews

Sun-Tzu on the Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World (Sunzi for Language Learners, Volume 1)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
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.

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

Sun Tzu "The Art of War" was excellent. This book is a great book on strategy. Whether you command a nations army, war games or a moderen business. If the reader uses some of these war tactics and strategies in the modern world, they may find it easy to relate. 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, sports, war games, or actual wars, you can be sure to learn more on how to best deal with the situation through the strategies in this book.

The book is timeless....and should be required reading for all persons.

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.

The Art of War, a military treatise written by Sun Tzu around 500 B.C. in ancient China, teaches many good lessons to anyone who will ever have to command a group of people, in the workplace, in school, or on the battlefield. This is the only translation I have read, and it is easy to understand without being boring, so I assume that it is a good translation. A very useful and interesting book.

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.

This was the first worthwhile translation of The art of war into English, and in many ways it remains the best. Certainly it has been the most influential. Even after a dozen other translations had appeared, Dr Joseph Needham still considered this the "standard" version in English. (Science and civilisation in China v.6, 1996.) In fact this translation is so important that the first edition (1910) has reached twelve thousand dollars in the rare-book market. (Jaydillon com, 2003.) If you're serious about Sun Tzu, then this is the version you want.

This is the classic translation by Lionel Giles, formerly of the British Museum, of Sun Tzu's great military treatise. It includes numerous footnotes and explanatory notes. It is a 'straight', translation with many of the more interesting and amusing anecdotes that have come to surround Sun Tzu - such as the 'drilling the concubines' story, in which Sun Tzu beheads the Emperor's favourite concubine to demonstrate the efficiency of discipline, and the requirements of leadership.

"The Art of War" by Sun Tzu is a book that is just as relevant today as it was when it was written. Only now, life isn't as simple To some, things like careers, sports, and love are considered just as cutthroat as any conflict between warring nations. If one is willing to see their world in the simplest terms, there are no limits to the knowledge they can receive from studying this book.