First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"He will win who knows when to fight -- and when not to fight."

This is the classic translation of the Chinese military masterpiece, and it remains the best as it preserves the character and nuances of the Chinese original. An inspiration for Mao Tse Tung and countless generations of military leaders, it was written in antiquity and consists of thirteen chapters that reflect the mind of a born strategist and practical soldier whose maxims, full of acuteness and common sense, relate as much to the present day as they do to the military conditions of the time in which they were written. Preceded by critical notes on Sun Tzu and his work and including key Chinese characters, chapters are devoted to laying plans; waging war; attack by strategem, tactical dispositions, energy, weak points, and strong; maneuvering; variation of tactics; the army on the march; terrain; the nine situations; attack by fire; and the use of spies. The book also contains an extensive index. As useful in the pursuit of success in modern business as it was in ancient warfare, this volume also relates to all aspects of personal and everyday life in which you must either be a winner or a loser.

Featuring the Chinese text on the left and the English translation on the right, this beautifully bound edition of Sun Tzu's classic text makes a unique gift or collector's item. Written in the sixth century BCE, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is still widely read and consulted today for its timeless, piercing insights into strategy and tactics. Napoleon, Mao Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap, and General Douglas MacArthur all claimed to have drawn inspiration from it. Beyond the world of war, business and management gurus have also applied Sun Tzu's ideas to office politics and corporate strategy. This edition of The Art of War is printed on high-quality paper and bound by traditional Chinese book-making techniques. It contains the full 13 chapters on such topics as laying plans, attacking by stratagem, weaponry, terrain, and the use of spies. Sun Tzu addresses different campaign situations, marching, energy, and how to exploit your enemy's weaknesses. This edition is an essential addition to any library, whether you're fascinated by the philosophy of warfare, Chinese history, or even twenty-first-century business.

About Sun Tzu The earliest known work on military strategy and war, The Art of War consists of 13 short chapters attributed to a man named Sun Tzu, also known as Sun Tzi or Sun Wu. Little is known about the man, but he is widely believed to have been an accomplished general when he wrote the text. It emphasizes surprise and deception, with lines like "When capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity." The Art of War became known in Europe in the 18th century, and something of a manual for U.S. military strategists in the 20th century, when it was popularized by Henry Kissinger, among others. When Lionel Giles began his translation of Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR, the work was virtually unknown in Europe. Its introduction to Europe began in 1782 when a French Jesuit Father living in China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy of it, and translated it into French. It was not a good translation because, according to Dr. Giles, " I]t contains a great deal that Sun Tzu did not write, and very little indeed of what he did." The first translation into English was published in 1905 in Tokyo by Capt. E. F. Calthrop, R.F.A. However, this translation is, in the words of Dr. Giles, "excessively bad." He goes further in this criticism: "It is not merely a question of downright blunders, from which none can hope to be wholly exempt. Omissions were frequent; hard passages were willfully distorted or slurred over. Such offenses are less pardonable. They would not be tolerated in any edition of a Latin or Greek classic, and a similar standard of honesty ought to be insisted upon in translations from Chinese." In 1908 a new edition of Capt. Calthrop's translation was published in London. It was an improvement on the first - omissions filled up and numerous mistakes corrected - but new errors were created in the process. Dr. Giles, in justifying his translation, wrote: "It was not undertaken out of any inflated estimate of my own powers; but I could not help feeling that Sun Tzu deserved a better fate than had befallen him, and I knew that, at any rate, I could hardly fail to improve on the work of my predecessors." Clearly, Dr. Giles' work established much of the groundwork for the work of later translators who published their own editions. Of the later editions of the ART OF WAR I have examined; two feature Giles' edited translation and notes, the other two present the same basic information from the ancient Chinese commentators found in the Giles edition. Of these four, Giles' 1910 edition is the most scholarly and presents the reader an incredible amount of information concerning Sun Tzu's text, much more than any other translation.