The Art of War

THE ART OF WAR (Sunzi, Chinese, c. 5th century BCE)

Not so long ago, a fad applied the principles of Sunzi's The Art of War to business. What nonsense. It's about war! Dating to roughly the 5th century BCE, it has since that time been East Asia's most influential strategy text. Sunzi (sometimes spelled Sun Tzu) was a (possibly ahistorical) Chinese general, strategist, and philosopher who advised his readers to "subdue the enemy without fighting," to "know when to fight and when not to fight," to "wait to take the enemy unprepared," etc.

• The essence of the book may be summed up in the phrase, "mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy."
• The first complete English translation was made in 1910.

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