Rating: 
Summary: Worth the price!
Review: I'd pair this book with the Tao Te Ching, and the I Ching. A book, written well over 5000 years ago, which is still applicable today. Insights that can be used in many facets of life including home and business. A must read for all you people who want to get ahead!
Rating: 
Summary: A valuable read
Review: I read this book as part of a summer internship that I had, and I read it, along with The Book of the Five Rings and Machiavelli's The Prince, with the goal of parallelling its age-old principles to modern business. It is a good book, at some points very military-specific, but all in all a book that anyone could walk away from having benefited from the read. Its maxims can, with an open mind, be applied to almost any walk of life, though especially to the business world. It emphasises loyalty, determination, and most importantly foresight and analysis as keys to success in life.
I give it a 4. Its not necessary to get through life. A lot of what it says is obvious. It is a good book to recommend to anyone because you cant go wrong with it and you look well read. I certainly recommend it over the Book of the Five Rings.
Rating:
Summary: Art of Marketing War
Review: This book will definitely help in the feild of marketing. Much like war marketing deal with strategy and positioning. There i much to learn from this book. A definite must read.
Rating:
Summary: Old World Strategies For New World Bussiness
Review: I was looking forward to reading this book so much that I fell asleep while trying to read the first 90 pages of Sino history during the time of Sun Tzu. That is the only reason I gave it a four, instead of five stars. The author has openly not taken into account that very few of us have a fraction of his knowledge of these interesting events. I understand these to be of great importance to the reader but the author needed to simplfy it a bit. Some people have criticised this book because they were not able see how these passages correspond to modern day business relationships. It is up to the reader to interpret this for himself. One of my favorites is the following quote from page 128-129, passage 19-20 19. And therefore the general who is advancing does not seek personal fame, and in withdrawing is not concerned with avoiding punishment, but whose only purpose is to protect people and promote the best interests of his sovereign, is the precious jewel of the state. My translation: A boss must not have fear of his superior and make decisions that are in the best interests of the people he manages which sometime clash with those of highly political senior management. 20. Because such a general regards his men as infants they will march with him into the deepest valleys. He treats them as his own beloved sons and they will die with him. Tu Mu... During the Warring States when Wu Ch'i was a general he took the same food and wore the same clothes as the lowliest of his troops. On his bed there was no mat; on the march he did not mount his horse; he himself carried his reserve rations. He shared exhaustion and bitter toil with his troops. My translation: Bosses who spend time helping their employees solve problems, pitching in a hand with anybody in the team who is behind a project deadline etc. Employees who witness such actions are willing to spend any amount of overtime to help a team reach a goal. The boss can depend on their subordinates when push comes to shove. This book also unlocks the secrets to the Sino and Japanese business mentality. This book is a great read for any business person
Rating:
Summary: Unquestionably great
Review: I have read and reread this book too many times to count since I first got my hands on a copy years ago and added it to the few books that I never travel without. For people with the patience, insight, and intelligence to grasp the lessons inside, The Art of War offers more wisdom than the words alone suggest. Though simply written and far more general than specific, the suggestions and comments made by the author cut to the heart of conflict. Application, however, is up to the reader... So your mileage on this text may vary.
Rating: 
Summary: Art of war falls short of expectations
Review: The Art of War is a timeless classic written by a Chinese expert on war. Its principles can be applied to a wide variety of subjects and can be interpreted in a vast array of contexts. However, as musc as the book is praised and "hyped" it really fell short of my expectations. It is not a "Bible" of life, ie. rules to live by for success, but rather a collection of Chinese proverbs that are loosely organized and somewhat difficult to relate to at times. Moreover, most editions have prefaces and other "additions" by the person who translated the text, so in reality Sun Su's work was about 70 pages in my edition. I would not recommend buying the book, rent it at the local library instead and save it for a rainy day. For a great motivational book, I would recommend The Fountainhead by Aynn Rand.
Rating: 
Summary: zzzzz
Review: Man, after all the kudos my old, dumb crowd from high school had foisted on this book, to finally read it and see what they were crowing about...turned out to be nothing but namedrop, I guess, because its a bore and a half. This edition is 200 pages long, however, the actual text is onnly about 90. But it doesn't matter if you skip the prefaces and appendices, you'll still be reading very dry, dated, technical military tactics. Do not, do not buy this if you are expecting philosophy, martial arts wisdom, or business strategy. They just say that so you'll buy it. One thing was revealing; Sun Tzu's accomplishments and history, like Socrates and Jesus, may be apocryphal, merely an authority figure to refer to who had undeniable wisdom.
Rating:
Summary: The Timeless Beauty of War
Review: War is ugly, dirty, brutal, wasteful and expensive. That is the reality of it. Let's not pretend otherwise. Having said that, the ancient Chinese master strips away all the familiar trappings of war - the warriors, weapons, forts and tactics - to reveal the essence of conflict and how to win. His lessons are as valid here and now as they were in an empire a long time ago and far, far away. It simply does not matter how you are fighting, what you are fighting over nor even why you are fighting. If you are forced into conflict with another, the lessons in this book will guarantee victory. Brute strength, overwhelming force, super weapons, holding the high ground, none of these are required for victory. All that is needed is a leader who can understand and apply the principles of warfare. Essentially it boils down to three ideas.
1. Know yourself.
2. Know your enemy.
3. Only fight when you can win. Do this, and you will win competitions, elections, games. Anything that involves conflict. Even wars. Sun Tzu's elegant language lays bare the principles of warfare, illustrating his lessons with examples from Ancient China. It is a thought-provoking, colourful and valuable book.
Rating:
Summary: Truths worth understanding
Review: The Art of War is considered a classic of military strategy, and is frequently rapplied in the business arena. Is it about the military, or achieving victory with the mind? Was Sun Tzu really a general? Did he really behead 50 maidens for not taking his military drills seriously? (The next 50 were more serious students - motivation!) Independent of the truth of the legend, the truths in this book are worth pondering. Take one piece of advice, roughly paraphrased as,
"Know thy self, win some of the time.
Know thy enemy, win some of the time.
Know both thy self and thy enemy, and win all of the time" At the surface, this is so obvious as to not be profound.
But look at it's applicability... How many companies worry so much about their competitors that they don't understand what they're good at? To defeat a corporate competitor, you must know your competitive advantage. How many people think, "This purchase is in my best interest, so I'll buy it" without considering the price. How many politicians are willing to say, "It doesn't matter what the Al Quada was thinking, it was wrong, so we must bomb them" How can we truly beat them if we don't understand them? There are literally hundreds of these truths to ponder - so obvious until you look at how infrequently they're done. This ancient wisdom is worth more than reading, it's worth understanding.
Rating:
Summary: Picking the best Sun Tzu
Review: If you're interested in understanding generalship or strategy Sun Tzu: Art of War is an essential. That said there is a serious question about which translation to buy. There are at least five widely avaliable English translations, based upon two different Chinese texts of the original,plus a comic book version. The translation by S.B.Griffith,Gen USMC,was for a long time the best/standard version. This is a good translation by a thoughtful soldier that would be a good selection. This translation was based upon the traditional or recieved version of the Chinese text.
In 1972 at an excavation at Silver Sparrow Mountain,Yin-ch'uch Shan, uncovered a tresure trove of Chinese texts that were older than any previously known versions. Among these texts was a version the Sun Tzu:Art of war that is nearly one thousand years older than the version the older translations are based upon. Translations based on this text are by the Denma Translation Commitee and by Roger Ames. If you want scolarship the Ames translation is the one for you. His translation covers the background,compares the texts and provides an excellent English translation. The Denma translation is intended to capture the flavor as well as the sense of the Chinese text. It intends that the students of war/strategy will their mind and their heart to their study of the text. Thus, the text is, like the original,more gnomic. As to its scholarship this version equals Ames. In fact,an extract from it appears in Columbia's Sources of the Chinese Tradition. If you're an academic: Ames,otherwise:Denma. Me,I own both.
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