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    The Art of War (Condensed Classics): History's Greatest Work on Strategy--Now in a Special Condensation
    The Art of War (Condensed Classics): History's Greatest Work on Strategy--Now in a Special Condensation
    The Art of War (Condensed Classics): History's Greatest Work on Strategy--Now in a Special Condensation
    Ebook51 pages43 minutes

    The Art of War (Condensed Classics): History's Greatest Work on Strategy--Now in a Special Condensation

    By Sun Tzu and Mitch Horowitz

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    THE TIMELESS CLASSIC ON STRATEGY AND VICTORY—NOW IN A SPECIAL CONDENSATION


    “LET YOUR PLANS BE DARK AND IMPENETRABLE AS NIGHT, AND WHEN YOU MOVE, FALL LIKE A THUNDERBOLT.” 

    Sun Tzu’s The Art of the War is the master key to power and victory. It is the most important book ever written on overcoming obstacles and defeating your foes. Now, this legendary martial guide is available in a special abridgment with a new introduction by PEN Award- winning author Mitch Horowitz. 

    Mitch brings you the work’s most essential, practical, and useful ideas. His new introduction highlights the ancient work’s major points and history. Mitch also supplies carefully chosen notes that bring out author Sun Tzu’s subtlest meanings.

    All of the book’s millennia-old wisdom can be yours in a single sitting. Discover today why The Art of War has guided soldiers, generals, martial artists, and seekers throughout the ages.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherG&D Media
    Release dateFeb 9, 2019
    ISBN9781722522896
    Author

    Sun Tzu

    Sun Tzu, also known as Sun Wu or Sunzi, was an ancient Chinese military strategist believed to be the author of the acclaimed military text, The Art of War. Details about Sun Tzu’s background and life are uncertain, although he is believed to have lived c. 544-496 BCE. Through The Art of War, Sun Tzu’s theories and strategies have influenced military leaders and campaigns throughout time, including the samurai of ancient and early-modern Japan, and more recently Ho Chi Minh of the Viet Cong and American generals Norman Swarzkopf, Jr. and Colin Powell during the Persian Gulf War in the 1990s.

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      Book preview

      The Art of War (Condensed Classics) - Sun Tzu

      INTRODUCTION

      The Unlikeliest Classic

      By Mitch Horowitz

      Since its first creditable English translation in 1910, the ancient Chinese martial text The Art of War has enthralled Western readers. First gaining the attention of military officers, sinologists, martial artists, and strategy aficionados, The Art of War is today read by business executives, athletes, artists, and seekers from across the self-help spectrum. This is a surprising destiny for a work on ancient warfare estimated to be written around 500 BC by Zhou dynasty general Sun Tzu, an honorific title meaning Master Sun. Very little is known about the author other than a historical consensus that such a figure actually existed as a commander in the dynastic emperor’s army.

      What, then, accounts for the enduring popularity of a text that might have been conscripted to obscurity in the West?

      Like the best writing from the Taoist tradition, The Art of War is exquisitely simple, practical, and clear. Its insights into life and its inevitable conflicts are so organic and sound—Taoism is based on aligning with the natural order of things—that many people who have never been on a battlefield are immediately drawn into wanting to apply Sun Tzu’s maxims to daily life.

      Indeed, this gentle condensation is intended to highlight those aphorisms and lessons that have the broadest general applicability. I have no doubt that as you experience this volume you will immediately discover ideas that you want to note and use. This is because Sun Tzu’s genius as a writer is to return us to natural principles—things that we may have once understood intuitively but lost in superfluous and speculative analysis, another of life’s inevitabilities.

      I have based this abridgment on the aforementioned and invaluable 1910 English translation by British sinologist Lionel Giles. Giles’ translation has stood up with remarkable relevance over the past century. Rather than laden his words with the flourish of late-Victorian prose, Giles honored the starkness and sparseness of the original work. I have occasionally altered an obscure or antiquated term, but, overall, the economy and elegance of Giles’ translation is an art form in itself, and deserves to be honored as such.

      Why then a condensation at all? In some instances, Sun Tzu, a working military commander, necessarily touched upon battlefield intricacies—such as the fine points of terrain or attacking the enemy with fire—that prove less immediately applicable to modern life than his observations on the movements and motives of men. In a few spots I also add a clarifying note to bring out Sun Tzu’s broader points.

      I ask the reader to take special note of Sun Tzu’s frequent references to adhering to the natural landscape. It is a classically Taoist approach to blend with the curvature and qualities of one’s surroundings—to find your place in the organic order of things. Within the Vedic tradition this is sometimes called dharma. Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson also notes the need to cycle yourself with the patterns of nature. As

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