I’m not sure what to rate this and I’m not writing a review for this book as it’s not my preferred genre and this was an attempt at reading out of my comfort zone. I will say it was entertaining and I learnt quite a lot of things. The audiobook was only 1 hour long so it was a quick read. The narration was great. I’d recommend the book. :)

M.Ö yazılmış bir eser olmasına rağmen güncelliğini koruyor olması zaten ne kadar iyi bir strateji kitabı olduğunun kanıtı.
Bunun yanında kitaptaki stratejileri ve önerileri hayatın hemen hemen her noktasında kullanabilecek olmanız da cabası.
Okuyun okutturun!

I read the Chinese version with English translation. I was most impressed with this observation: that winning every war is not the best scenario; the most ideal scenario is where one manages to repel an enemy without fighting. The other theory I found convincing is that a shrewd fighter would choose his men wisely and would know how to ride the prevailing situation. Most of the contents would seem to be practical common sense.

The keynote of the first chapter ~ all warfare is based on deception ~ seems to tally with the last chapter, which is about the use of spies.

Some very powerful and tactful strategies which can be used in various situations.

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The fact that a work written in the 5th century BC on military strategy and tactics remains highly relevant today speaks volumes about its enduring quality and the depth of thought behind it. The principles outlined not only apply to military and warfare scenarios but also resonate in the daily lives of "we the people" across various fields—whether they are professionals, businesspeople, or athletes.


The Art of War is a classical work of military strategy that underscores the importance of diligent planning, deception, and understanding the enemy. Authored by Sun Tzu, a Chinese military general, philosopher, and writer, this influential military doctrine highlights, amongst many other concepts, the critical idea that an attack should only occur when the enemy has no means to defend or counterattack.
In the author's own words, "to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting".
After all, at its core, all warfare is based on deception!

As has often been happening in the past, I stumbled upon this book also by chance. One day, while working, a quote on strategic planning popped into my mind, prompting me to search for it on google; only to come across this remarkable work!

Highly recommended!

5/5

The Art of War was written around 500 BC by a man of amazing stragedy named Sun Tzu. It was written on very thin strips of bamboo and pain stakenly sewed together. This volume describes the strgedies to create a very successful life, win in battles and relationships. This book has been used through the ages as a guide in battles. It is the cor coriculum in many war colleges including West Point. Sun Tzu successfully predicted the outcome of the battle of Getiesberg, and the Vietnam war. I recommend all read this book for it' bennafits in o's life and relationships.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond

This book from Sun Tzu has of course made the rounds of management literature for the last few decades but remains a highly readable account of strategy and warfare. It is, one again, very innately masculine and thus probably will touch female readers less - except if they read it to see how the male-dominated worlds of war and hierarchal management work because - besides perhaps Machiavelli's The Prince - this is the most unadulterated description of the male mentality in aggressive mode ever written. There are of course many one liners but the overall book remains a classic and can serve as a guide to how we got to where we are in many ways.

Hey! Look at me stepping outside my comfort zone!



I saw this audiobook in the library, and I thought it looked interesting.
Hell, I've got 4 kids. This could come in handy.
Next year I'll have not one, but two teenage boys. I need to prepare myself to defend my babies home from the invading whores hoards. I figured this book would help me gird my loins (or whatever it is you do) when you head into battle.
Back off, Skanks! You're not getting past the front door!



Still, even teenage boys pale in comparison to the sheer terror that comes with sharing a home with pre-pubescent girls...
Retreat! Retreat! We've misjudged the enemy's abilities!



I can definitely use the help of a master strategist. Although, in retrospect, I actually have one of those living with me. She's 10, and she's been fully in charge of my home since she clawed her way out of my womb. My husband says I was hallucinating (bless whoever came up with drugs in the delivery room!), but I swear I saw her gnaw off her own umbilical cord.
She's ruthless, clever, and has the smile of an angel.
Lucifer was an angel, too...
Anyway, I could have skipped this and simply begged for the honor to sit at her feet and learn.
n  Teach me your ways, Mighty Warrior!n



But the cover said this was only a 4 1/2 hour book.
What? She probably wouldn't have shared her secrets anyway...
Confession time: I did not make it all the way through the audiobook.
I did, however, make it all the way through The Art of War. That part of it was short. I don't know what the actual length of time was, but I listened to it while I was making dinner, and then took it with me on a short jaunt to Wal-mart.
Boom! Done! Thank you, Sun Tzu!



The rest of this particular audio is supposedly speculation about Sun Tzu's life, and a history lesson on the politics of the time he lived in.
Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah...
All the names bled together in my head, and the words just sort of sloshed around inside my brain till I finally gave up on it.



I'm not saying it was badly done or boring, but my tiny dinosaur brain isn't built to process books without pictures. So listening to someone with a smooth jazzy voice read from a history book is just like asking for some sort of an internal meltdown to happen up there.



So. The Art of War.
I actually don't feel like Mr. Tzu had much to say that would help me out.
I mean, a there were a few things translated into real life...
Be consistent in rewards and punishments. Duh.
Employ spies. Double duh. I've got every one of my kids on the payroll, and they each think they're the only mole I've got. Suckers!
Make sure the enemy is tired before attacking. Hello? Why do you think I'm out at the pool all day long with them? It's not like I enjoy basking in the glow of my cellulite, all while gaining a few more liver spots. If Sun Tzu had mentioned dosing the enemy with Benadryl before long trips, I would have been more impressed.
A lot of it, however, was about how to fight on different types of terrain. Swampy, mountainous, flat, etc..
That's no help to me, buddy!
I need some sort of inside scoop that's going to give me an edge over the full blown she-devil I live with, the smaller demon-in-training (currently under the tutelage of the aforementioned she-devil), and the two walking hormones that used to be my little boys!
I can't hold 'em off much longer! I'm going down! Going dow....



*pants frantically*

Anyhoo, I'm glad I read listened to it. It's one of those books you need to study...not read, though. So, I'm pretty sure I missed the vast majority of wisdom by doing it this way.
But so what? I can say I've read it!
I feel like a badass now, and that's all that's important.
Pbbbt!

5.0 stars. One of the most influential books ever written and certainly the foundational book on basic military strategy and tactics. Amazingly enough, its wisdom is still relevant today even after over 2500 years since its original creation.

This military treatise dating back to 5 century BC is a fascinating read, to say the least. Believed to have been written by Sun Tzu (master Sun), a military strategist, this book is composed of 13 chapters, all devoted to different aspects of warfare. However, this book is not just about warfare. A lot of people have drawn inspiration from this book. You don't have to be a general to learn something from it. It is absolutely a book about war but it is also about life itself...for what is life if not a constant state of war with ourselves and the world? This is not exactly a book about the meaning of life and the nature of the world, yet somehow...it kind of is. It is about attitude and perhaps that is what life is about-finding the right kind of attitude.

I was absolutely blown away by it the first time I had read it. I remember asking myself: 'How can a book that dates back 5 centuries BC feel so relevant?'. I bought a lovely copy of it and at one point in my life, I copied this entire book into a notebook, word by word, sentence by sentence. It was a time well spent, I would say for there is a lot of meaning to be found in this book. Besides, I borrowed my copy to a friend and never got it back so it is good that I still have this book in writing- for when I don't feel like reading it from a screen. Even if you see it as only an ancient Chinese military treatise, it's really something in the historical sense as well. It gives you insight into past times and early military strategy. You can definitely learn something from this book. There is so much meaning and wisdom in this book. It is a true classic and still relevant today. A must read!

I definitely never thought i'd want to read a book about Chinese military strategy written in 5th century BC .... yet here we are.
This one turned out to be so interesting.

3.5 ⭐


Master Sun said:
Ultimate excellence lies
Not in applying false subtext to my teachings
To suit your corporate self-help douche-baggery
But in defending their integrity
By acknowledging them for what they are
Military Stratagems, through and through


For the purpose of review, my edition of ‘The Art of War’ is the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. Edited, translated and with an introduction by John Minford. This was a really great way to experience this 2500-year-old military treatise. It begins with about a 50-page section reserved for the introduction, notes on text, list of dynasties and historical events as well as a list and description of the various canon commentators ranging from the Pre-Tang era (as early as 155-220) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). You are then given the treatise, unadorned, to read and make your own presumptions as to it’s meaning, followed by the same treatise with extensive commentary.


Beginning with the work itself, as not everyone’s copy will have the commentary included, Sun Tzu’s treatise, in my opinion, is to be taken as nothing other than military strategy. The foundation of this work is exploitation and deception or “Success through cunning”. This is why I can appreciate its genius in the context of war and even individual combat (Bruce Lee applies many of the same underlying Taoist principles to his philosophy of ‘Jeet Kune Do’ with devastating effect) but can’t understand why anyone would want to introduce such dishonest tactics of subterfuge to their personal or work life. If I took anything beneficial from a personal perspective it was from the Taoist ideas which seem to permeate both Sunzi’s thoughts and those of the commentators. The treatise places huge importance on the planning and gathering of information through espionage, understanding the forms and dispositions of both yourself and the enemy army at any given time, unpredictability (formlessness), the benefits of advantageous terrain and both the virtues of an effective general as well as the pitfalls of a poor one.


I’ve seen Sunzi’s work taken out of context and used in countless personal and corporate self-help books. The idea of taking pure ideology and twisting it, almost beyond recognition, to suit your own needs is nothing new. In fact, even Sun Tzu himself abuses a number of the basic notions of Taoist teachings to support his own ideas. As did the so-called “legalists” (Chinese fascists) of the warring states period who derived a perverted justification for their Orwellian State through certain Taoist principles.


One of the more horrifying examples of distorting well-intentioned philosophies are the Chinese teachings regarding the “Art of Love”. These somehow take the wholesome lessons of the Tao and use them to justify a “relentless quest for sexual power” in which women are reduced to “objects for the enhancement of male potency and long life”. Get a load of this insane shit:
n   “The man should defeat the enemy in the sexual battle by keeping himself under complete control… while exciting the woman till she reaches orgasm and sheds her Yin essence which is then absorbed by the man.”n
Well, ladies, if that doesn’t get you up and about, I don’t know what will. I mean, as long as you’re cool with being perceived as a sexual enemy by your loved-one, objectified and having your precious “Yin essence” absorbed, the rest sounds ok, right?!... Doesn’t sound like the Tao that I know.


I was concerned but not entirely turned away by the fact that this kind of philosophical distortion might leak into the commentary of this translation but I needn’t have worried. The commentary given here is completely literal. A number of the commentators themselves were generals in the centuries closely following the time in which these stratagems were allegedly compiled. Minford compiles these commentaries brilliantly. At times he has ordered them so as to be a sort of commentary on commentary. One philosopher will comment on Master Sun’s work, followed by another philosopher commenting on what the previous commentator said. Often this reads like a multi-generational conversation between strategists which I really enjoyed. You also really begin to get a feel for the personality traits of a number of the commentators. For example, there’s Du You, lover of cat analogies, or Cao Cao, the brutal general and strict disciplinarian who was prepared to take his own life upon breaking one of his own trivial rules. These were the things I liked about the commentary.


On the other hand, there were times when the commentary became repetitive and at times felt redundant due to the fact that a lot of Sunzi’s information is quite literal and unclouded by metaphor. In stark contrast to something like the ‘Tao Te Ching’ by Lao Tzu whose teachings are infamously intangible and elusive. Sun Tzu already has a habit of repeating some ideas in an educationally beneficial manner. On a number of occasions, the exact phrase is repeated. Whether this was actually him or the way the bamboo strips have been compiled, I don’t know. The point is, when you pile on additional, unrequired clarification and expansion, it does begin to get a little tiresome after a couple of hundred pages.


Sun Tzu: ”Deadlock” means that neither side finds it advantageous to make a move.
Du You: What Sunzi means is that neither side finds it advantageous to move, and the situation remains deadlocked.
Sun Tzu: Yeah bro, that’s literally exactly what I just said! Du You even listen?


I enjoyed this, despite the last 100 pages becoming a bit of a battle of attrition, and am now really looking forward to reading the ‘Tao Te Ching’ and the ‘Analects of Confucius’ in the next month or so. Happy reading amigos!


n  ”Know the enemy,
Know yourself,
And Victory
Is never in doubt
Not in a hundred battles.”n