DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Art of War

Tzu Sun author John Minford translator John Minford editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd

Published:3rd Sep '09

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in other editions too:

The Art of War cover

For more than two thousand years, Sun-Tzu?sThe Art of Warhas provided military leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception.

Capturing the literary quality of "The Art of War", this book presents the core text in two different formats. It allows readers to form their own first impressions of the ancient words of wisdom ascribed to Sun-tzu. It includes an introduction, chronologies, suggested readings, and other apparatus.

For more than two thousand years, Sun-tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle, in business or in relationships. Now, in this crisp, accessible new translation, John Minford brings this seminal work to life for today's readers.

Capturing the literary quality of The Art of War - its lucid, epigrammatic, almost poetic style - as well as its philosophical and strategic content, Minford present the core text in two different formats. First, the unadorned thirteen chapters allow readers to form their own first impressions of the ancient words of wisdom ascribed to Sun-tzu. Then the same text appears with extensive running commentary from the canon of traditional Chinese commentators and others, providing context and subtext to the work. A lively, learned introduction, chronologies, suggested readings, and other valuable apparatus round this authoritative volume. Even those readers familiar with The Art of War will experience it anew, finding it more fascinating - and more chilling - than ever.

"The strategic advice that [The Art of War] offers concerns much more than the conduct of war. It is an ancient book of proverbial wisdom, a book of life." —John Minford, from the Introduction

ISBN: 9780143105756

Dimensions: 196mm x 130mm x 20mm

Weight: 260g

384 pages