The Art of War

The ancient Chinese military classic that is widely admired today by both military and business strategists--in a new translation, with new notes and commentary. For more than two thousand years, The Art of War has provided leaders with essential tactical and management advice. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone in the West for achieving success, whether on the battlefield or in business. This Everyman's Library edition features a brilliant new translation by Peter Harris. Alongside the pithy and powerful ancient text, Harris includes: ;;;; --Extracts from the canon of traditional Chinese commentators who have explained Sun Tzu's wisdom over the centuries ;;;; --Notes ;;;; --A bibliography ;;;; --A chronology of Chinese dynasties ;;;; --A map ;;;; --An illuminating introduction on the warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu and the role of The Art of War in history and today

ldquo;Like Thucydides, [Sun Tzu] has a reputation today at least as great as it was well over two millennia ago . . . Given the peculiarly personal acumen and insight that inform Sun Tzu’s brief, sometimes enigmatic, but always practical Art of War . . . we are surely reading the words of an acutely intelligent military man with a subtle, original mind and a wealth of experience all his own.”
—from the Introduction by Peter Harris

Autorentext

Sun Tzu; Translated and Introduced by Peter Harris

Leseprobe
from the INTRODUCTION by Peter Harris
 
A phrase often used to describe the dangers inherent in the rapidly changing relationship between the United States and China is the ‘Thucydides trap’. Even the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has alluded to it, if only to express the hope that it can be avoided. The phrase is used to refer to Thucydides’ remark, when considering the origins of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the late fifth century BCE, that ‘what made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta’ – Sparta being the United States in today’s world, of course, and Athens being China. (In fact the phrase ‘Thucydides trap’ is misleading for several reasons, not the least being that Thucydides never wrote about a trap as such.  But this is not the place to dwell on that.)
 
Thucydides’ remark about the inevitability of war between Athens and Sparta reflects his determinedly realist view of the world, with its steady focus on power and self-interest. The Athenian historian would have been surprised to learn that as he applied this realism to his History of the Peloponnesian War, another arch-realist halfway around the world had been making his mark (or would soon be doing so, depending on which dates for his life we accept) with his own penetrating discussion of interstate rivalry and power. This was the Chinese general Sun Tzu, or Master Sun.
 
Sun Tzu (or Sun Zi, if written with the romanisation now used in mainland China, zi meaning ‘master’) was a military man and a strategist, rather than a military historian. But he shared Thucydides’ sense of realpolitik, built in his case on an acute appreciation of the uses of deception in the pursuit of military success. And like Thucydides, he has a reputation today at least as great as it was well over two millennia ago.
 
We know a certain amount about Thucydides from what he tells us about himself in his History. About Sun Tzu we know almost nothing. Indeed, some people doubt whether he even existed, arguing that his writings may have been no more than an amalgam of old military saws. Given the peculiarly personal acumen and insight that informs Sun Tzu’s brief, sometimes enigmatic, but always practical Art of War, this is not a point of view that it is easy to come to terms with. As we read Sun Tzu we tell ourselves that we are surely reading the words of an acutely intelligent military man with a subtle, original mind and a wealth of experience all his own.
 
This is certainly the attitude adopted towards Sun Tzu by many of his admirers. To take just one recent example, the respected writer on political affairs Martin van Creveld has no qualms about treating Sun Tzu as a historical figure. In his 2017 book More on War, Van Creveld calls Sun Tzu one of two giants among military theoreticians, the other being the early nineteenth-century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. He describes both men as ‘standing head and shoulders above the rest’ – a suitably solid metaphor for someone assumed to be a real figure from the past.
 
The view that Sun Tzu really was a living person dates back to the first substantial source of information we have about him, his biography in the Records of the Grand Historian. These Records were a wide-ranging history of ancient China written early in the first century BCE by two men often described as the founding fathers of Chinese history, Sima Tan and more especially his son Sima Qian, who completed the work after his father died. Sima Qian was a careful though sometimes uncritical record-keeper, known for his utter dedication to his great work – after offending the emperor, he chose to stay alive by suffering the humiliating punishment of castration so that he could complete it. There is no particular reason to think that he doubted Sun Tzu’s existence, or the fact that – as he writes in the Records – Sun Tzu was a military adviser to King Helu¨ of the state of Wu, who reigned from 514 until his death in 496 BCE. (Sun Tzu himself has traditionally
been thought of as having been born in 544, and having died in the same year as King Helu¨ , 496.)
 
All the same, as many have pointed out, Sima Qian’s biography of Sun Tzu is disappointingly thin, and far from satisfactory as a historical source. Here is the text of the biography, in which we learn Sun Tzu’s full name, Sun Wu:
 
Master Sun Wu was a man of Qi state. He showed his Art of War to King Helu¨ of Wu state, who said, ‘I have read all thirteen chapters of your work. Can we have a little trial run at drilling troops?’ ‘We can,’ Sun Tzu replied. ‘Can it be done with women?’ the king asked. ‘It can,’ said Sun Tzu.
 
So the king had a hundred and eighty beauties come out from the palace. Sun Tzu divided them into two companies, put two of the king’s favourites in charge of them, and ordered them all to take up halberds. ‘Do you all know your front, back, left and right?’ he asked them. The women replied, ‘We do.’ ‘When I say ‘‘front,’’ ’ he went on, ‘go forward. When I say ‘‘left’’, go left. When I say ‘‘right’’, go right. When I say ‘‘back’’, go back.’ The women agreed to do so. Having issued these instructions, he set out hatchets and battle-axes and repeated his orders several times.
 
But then when he drummed the command ‘right’ the women broke out in laughter.
 
‘If instructions are unclear or orders are not properly understood,’ Sun Tzu said, ‘it is the fault of the general.’
 
He then repeated his orders several more times, and drummed the command ‘left’. The women again broke out laughing.
 
‘If instructions are unclear or orders are not properly understood,’ said Sun Tzu, ‘it is the general’s fault. If they are clear but not obeyed, it is the fault of the officers.’
 
He then made to behead the women in charge of the two companies. The king was watching this from …