ART OF WAR - AUDIO

Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: Art of War in general

Sun tzu's work is classic. Anyone interested in war, business, human conflict, strategy, politics or philosophy should read this book.

This book was written in 500BC in ancient China (before it was actually china) and is the first known written work to logically analyze the anomaly of war. In the first sentence of the work, it declares war is a recurring theme in man's world and that it must be studdied. Sun Tzu sees war, not as a temporary thing, but a constant threat. He also recognizes battle and war as a fluid, dynamic situation that is constantly changing. As can be seen in the following passage -

"Now an army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and attacks weakness. As water shapes its flow in accordance to the ground, so an army manages its victory in accordance with the situation of the enemy. As water has no constant form, there are no constant conditions in war."

His concepts are simple, but deep at the same time. Attack weakness, retreat from strength. Do the opposite of what your enemy thinks you will do. Fool your enemy into doing what you want him to. A famous quote from the book is "a great general attacks an already defeated army".

The great thing about this book is that it is so consice, yet open. The concepts of the work are very consice and easy to read yet they are broad enough to be open to interpretation through a variety of alternate perspectives. For instance the concepts can easily be applied to business, or to person to person relationships, in fact they can be applied to almost anything that involves human conflict.

One can only wish that GW Bush had such insight as is seen in the following passage:

"if not in the interests of the state, do not act. If you cannot succeed do not use troops. If you are not in danger, do not fight. A sovereign cannot raise an army because he is enraged, nor can a general fight because he is resentful. For while an angered man may again be happy, and a resentful man again be pleased, a state that has perished cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life."

This version of the Art of War:

I found this version (by Samuel Griffith) to be very good. It included biographical information, background info, related works, and information on the translation. Im not sure how many translations there have been of the AOW, but this seems a very good one. I would definatley reccomend this book to anyone interested in such things.

Rating:
Summary: *the* classic of strategy
Review: 2,500 years later, and still we read Sun Tzu. He's even part of our popular culture (if with slightly insidious connotations) thanks to the film Wall Street. At any rate, his fame is richly deserved. Although he discussed his philosophy in terms of war (with mentions of horses and the trappings of battle, for example), much of his work is written in broader language. His central lesson: Know your enemy and know yourself. Everything else emanates from this. Of course, Sun Tzu's conception of knowledge goes deeper, in a Taost sort of way, to knowing the fonts of being, the nature of existence. But from it also come the keys to success in war. Also important is deception (which is, of course, simply manipulation and exploitation of knowledge), as well speed and surprise. For Sun Tzu, the ideal battle is fought and won without bloodshed; it is essentially waged between two opposing commanders, who attempt to outwit the other.

Draw what conclusions you will for the modern world of business and politics, but the bottom line is, this is an enduring classic, with relevance even today. And Samuel Griffith translates the work admirably, despite the difficulty of translating aphoristic Chinese.

Rating:
Summary: The tactics of life
Review: This is good read for anyone in a competitive market (which pretty much encompasses the world). The ancient warrior Sun Tzu explains the "Art of War"; how to read the minds of your enemies and out guess them, how to strike fear into the hearts and minds of others, how to put yourself into a position to win a decisive battle, and the list goes on.

Don't be fooled by the title. This book is not just about wars fought on the battlefield. Inside are comparsions of fights that are fought everyday by hard working people and how to win them. A good read for all on how to protect yourself and attack others.

Rating:
Summary: Takeda Shingen's war banner (The Sengoku Era-Japan)
Review: " Swift like the wind,silent like the forest,fierce like fire, solid like the mountain,invisible as in darkness,moving like thunder,plundering villages,divide the people,enclosing land divide benefits,power depends on change,strategists win by forethought and circumvention,this is the way to fight battles."-by Sun Tzu........ Takeda Shingen (Born 1521 - Died 1573) used this poem from Sun Tzu on his war banner in the late 16th century in Japan. There's a movie called 'Kagemusha'(vhs)-by Akira Kurosawa about the death of Takeda Shingen and his famous war banner,thats if your into Japanese history. Another of his famous sayings is "Know your enemy and know yourself;in a hundred battles you will never be in peril,when you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself,your chances of winning or losing are equal,if ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself,you are certain in every battle to be in peril." -by Sun Tzu

Rating:
Summary: A study of strategy
Review: Sun Tzu's famous book is an excellent source of information on strategy and tactics of war. The information within can be useful to anyone looking for a way to be more powerful and succesful in their business and work relationships and is a must read for anyone actively involved in the military. This book is filled with raw information in an outline like form and some readers will find it extremely dry and hard to follow because it isn't in novel form, however, because of this it is well suited for study.

Rating:
Summary: Best Book on Leadership Ever Written
Review: For years I've heard people refer to this book as the ultimate tactical planner's guide. However, I never took the time to read it because I was turned off by images of greedy, yuppie stockbrokers refering to this book as their Bible. I didn't want to read anything recommended by corporate head-hunter types. I detested those individuals and any philosophy they espoused.

However, when the war in Afghanistan started, I became fascinated with military tactics and questioned why we have to bomb everything in sight. Is that the only way to win a war and does bombing actually end the conflict or prolong it? I picked up this book hoping to glean some Eastern wisdom from the legendary Sun Tzu. I was not disappointed.

Sun Tzu confirmed everything my instincts had been telling me about this dunderheaded Clausewitzean approach to military tactics. The US's overrealiance on ordinance and smart munitions has resulted in us becoming more and more tactically and politically inept. Our military destroys infrastracture and imposes silly sanctions that only prolong the "total war". In the end we exhaust our resources, frustrate our troops, alieanate our public, and forever ruin the indigenous people's lives. The tragic irony being we do more damage to the people we are trying to save than the "enemy" could have done himself.

Individuals like Bin Laden could have been apprehended had we taken up the offers of the Sudanese or freed up the small tactical units that warned us of this nutjob years ago. Instead we blunder forward with our highly destructive and inevitably ineffectual answer which is attrition warfare. The same thing that probably got us in this mess in the first place.

Sun Tzu, amazingly enough, predicted 2,500 years ago that this total war approach (destroying your enemy's property, stealing the enemy's food and riches) was actually more destructive to the endgame and to the overrall political objective. He eloquently advanced the notion that the true art of war is to conquer your enemy without ever actually going to battle!

Sun Tzu's heavy emphasis on psychological warfare (using spies to spread rumors and cause division in enemy ranks, disguising troop movements by appearing more formidable than you actually are, and winning through skillful negotiation) all seem concepts lost on today political and military elite. Sun Tzu preached you must possess the victory BEFORE ever setting foot on the battlefield. Despite the book being a military manual, I was surprised at how much emphasis was placed on avoiding war and pursuing mental and psychological victories. When Sun Tzu preached "know your enemy" he wanted you to know the endgame. He wanted you to see the bloodshed and the loss and determine if it was even worth it to use military force in an effort to achieve a political objective.

Our "100 hour" wars have become decades-long nightmares. Our reliance on air bombardment is resulting in us ignoring many of the brilliant small unit tactics that Sun Tzu espoused, thus we've had to reign in even more fire from above because our troops down below are insufficiently trained. We've abandoned the principles of deception. Because of our overreliance on technology, we've abandoned using human intelligence (which Sun Tzu strongly espoused) thus we have no moles, no double agents, and inevitably, no reliable intelligence on our enemy. In short, we don't know our enemy. We've sold ourselves on Clausewitz' destructive theories of attrition warfare. We've forgotten that the most effective and most advanced weapon in our arsenal is our brain.

Rating:
Summary: Should have bought the book
Review: This tape is difficult to listen to. The presentation just isn't good. The information seems valuable, but was hard to follow while listening in the car.

Rating:
Summary: A few grains of truth in a lot of chaff
Review: Today many of Sun Tzu quotas are floating around mixed with Shakespeare and the Bible. And as with many of the quote they are out of context and misleading. The quoter usually thinks repeating the word is some sort of magic.

This particular book spends more time trying to identify and qualify SunTzu's writings than just quoting them. I will not go through all the arguments as to who "wrote what when" or "translated what when" as you can read this for yourself.

Another distraction is the attempt to show how the book was applied or not applied in recent wars. This may be interesting to someone who's intention is to apply the theories of Sun Tzu; however it is not his writing but someone else's interpretation of its application.

Now lets finally get to Sun Tzu. It is easy with hindsight and a closer look at the future to dismiss Sun Tzu as his practical tactical knowledge is of a time and place long gone. He spends a lot of time on the use of weapons and information gathering techniques of the time. This can be interesting in a historical context; other wise it is quite amusing.

Oh yes those grains of truth I mentioned, well they may sound like cliches but thy are still viable. "Know your enemy and know yourself". Others are just practical sense and statistical outcomes that you learn in any military training. I could go through the list, but again that is why you buy the book.

Now just as you decide that the book is outdated for any practical purposes today we have artillery and now stealth and precision, the reminder that "no two wars are alike" and "it is flexibility that makes a difference" is being shown today to still be true. Even in today's wars there is a need for good intelligence and deception. We put a lot of time and energy into Psy-Ops. Sun Tzu shows the advantage in specialized units and crack troops.

I have spent several years in the military and in business and can say this book is a nice addition to history, otherwise of very little value to today's wold for war or business.

Rating:
Summary: Many ancient principles still applicable today
Review: In this book, translated by Samuel B. Griffith, are what I would call Getting Ahead for Dummies. It's principles are applicable in any number of modern situations, be you a businessperson, a military commander, gamer, or just the average person. I myself am a big online gamer, and more than just a few times have I related the principles in this text to games. They have never failed me.

Sun Tzu does not lay down a "this is the one and only way" strategy, but rather a comprehensive set of strategems that can be used individually, a few at a time, or all at once.

Samuel B. Griffith also helps in the understanding of the text by including excerpts from various commentators in relation to the text. These comments outline uses for strategies that Sun Tzu outlines, and help with understanding the text by applying it in a different sense.

I would reccomend this book for anyone who wants to get ahead in any way in life.

Rating:
Summary: Overrated and over-hyped
Review: This is a legendary book and has gotten a lot of play these days, from Wall St. to Hollywood types--including such notables as writer James Clavell. While I respect Clavell and am very familiar with the book, frankly, I don't see what all the commotion is about. The supposedly profound psychological principles that can be used to outwit your opponent, among many other strategems discussed, I found to be pretty elementary and not particularly astute. Perhaps for it's time this qualified as state of the art, but not anymore. Most of them are, or should be, pretty obvious.

Sun Tzu's observations about military strategy also seemed of limited applicability today since they pertain to ground wars with very primitive weapons. For example, his point that one should obtain the superior vantage point and position from which to attack, while valid, would be understood today by the greenest officer just out of his military strategy and tactics course at the academy. There are some occasionally useful tidbits here, but overall, I suspect anybody trying to use these tactics in exactly the same way today in a confrontation with modern ground weapons wouldn't be a happy camper.

To give just a couple of examples of this, in John Keegan's excellent book on the history of warfare, The Face of Battle, he points out that in the Battle of the Somme in World War I artillery accounted for 90 per cent of the casualties--not the infantry. The importance of artillery has continued to this day, something which didn't exist at all in Sun Tzu's time.

As Keegan has pointed out, the first "modern" battle in the sense that it was the artillery that carried the day was in the 12th century Battle of Agincourt, where the much smaller English army using longbowmen decisively defeated a much larger French army, inflicting heavy casualties on the other side.

Secondly, the greater speed, destructive power, and maneuverability of modern armies, especially in the case of mechanized armor, dictates that the overall strategy and details of ground engagements will be substantially different from those in Sun Tzu's time. (I could cite other examples, since we haven't even considered the advent of air power, but I'll leave it at that).

The best way to appreciate this book is in the context of a classic that represented a high point in the military thinking of its time, but which has since been superceded. Basically this amounts to saying the work has historical value, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't go too much further than that.

Also (assuming the story is true), anybody who would behead two of the Emperor's most beautiful concubines because they giggled during a marching exercise for the Emperor is a real jerk and should apply for membership in the Nazi Hall of Fame (more like Hall of Shame).

Finally, as seen from the editions of this book that purport to teach useful business principles derived from Sun Tzu's book-- westerners continually misinterpret Oriental classics like this and apply them to situations where they are not applicabl--and where even the Chinese wouldn't think of using them. Again, this is a book about war, and has very little relevance to business.

You'd think people would have taken a clue from the title, "The Art of War." It's doesn't say, "The Art of Business." What part of the title didn't they understand?

In fairness, I would sum up by saying Sun Tzu's book represents an important historical contribution, but it has been over- hyped far beyond its real worth to the modern reader, and inappropriately applied in other areas, such as business, where it has very little, if any, real relevance or value.

(P.S. Perhaps I would find B. H. Liddell-Hart's or Camille Clauswitz's books more profound as classics on war, as I did Kegan's books? I may try reading them and see if I find them more interesting and valuable than the Art of War. I have read articles about both books over the years, and they do seem more impressive, but I haven't actually read the originals yet. If I do, I will post a review on them here, as with the Sun Tzu book. Hopefully, I will have something more positive to say on these two also venerable classics.)