- ISBN13: 9780231133838
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Product Description
Compiled during the Warring States period of 475-221 B.C.E., The Art of War has had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese military strategy over the past two thousand years and occupies an important place in East Asian intellectual history. It is the first known attempt to formulate a rational basis for the planning and conduct of military operations, and while numerous editions of the work exist, Victor Mair’s translation is the first to remain true to the original structure and essential style of the text.
Mair’s fidelity to the original, along with his insightful commentary and reliance on archaeologically recovered manuscripts, breaks new ground in solving The Art of War‘s difficult textual and contextual problems. He confronts complex questions concerning the authorship of the work, asserting that Sun Wu, a supposed strategist of the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.E.) to whom the text is traditionally attributed, never existed. Instead, Mair claims that The Art of War coalesced over a period of around seventy-five years, from the middle of the fourth century to the first quarter of the third century B.C.E.
Mair also reveals the way The Art of War reflects historical developments in technological and military strategy in civilizations throughout Eurasia, especially in regards to iron metallurgy. He demonstrates the close link between the philosophy in The Art of War and Taoism and discusses the reception of the text from the classical period to today. Finally, Mair highlights previously unaddressed stylistic and statistical aspects and includes philological annotations that present new ways of approaching the intellectual and social background of the work. A phenomenal achievement, Mair’s comprehensive translation is an indispensable resource for today’s students, strategists, and scholars.
The Art of War: Sun Zi’s Military Methods
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I have been wanting to read Sun Tszu’s treatise for a long time but had never gotten around to it.
It consists of short paragraphs of his writings and many comentaries and arguments regarding them.
It isn’t something you can read in one go. At times it gets tedious reading the conflicting comments.
Because it was written long ago and has been rewritten and translated many times it has lost coherance in places. Still there is much of value and I wish that Bush and Rumsfeld had taken heed of it before getting
us involved in Iraq.
Rating: 3 / 5
The greatest value of this treatise is in its adaptation to business and corporate battlefields. I can not imagine anybody competing in the corporate world without reading this book.
And dare I say no journalist should ever try covering politics, local, state or national, without devouring this book, On War by Clausewits, and The Prince or Discourses by Machiavelli – C. William Anderson, aka Travis C. Ward.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a very important book. In fact it is so valuable that the chinese military classified it so that no up and coming rebels could read it, which is one reason it survived the national book burnings that destroyed so much chinese literature. Nowadays, however, everyone can, and should read this instructive book. This and the teachings of the T’ai Kung are essential for those who seek to understand conflict and humanity itself.
Rating: 5 / 5
A well-known writer friend strongly recommended this book to me and, knowing very little about the subject, I read it on a plane trip to southeast asia. I was entranced from start to finish. It is a work a great nuance and amazing writing. Buy it!
Rating: 4 / 5
Mair’s new translation does a great job of making “The Art of War” readable while better imbuing it with the feel of the Classical Chinese original.
His explanations also shed new light on various aspects of this work by attempting to put it in broader context than many previous translators and annotators.
I still think that every enthusiast of “The Art of War” ought to read the annotated Lionel Giles translation at least once–but without question, Victor H. Mair has created a genuinely valuable new translation that is superior to the work of most other modern Sinologists who tackled Sunzi’s enduring masterpiece.
Rating: 5 / 5