The Art of War (Sun Tzu)

The Art of War (Chinese: 孫子兵法; pinyin: Sūn Zǐ Bīng Fǎ) is a Chinese military treatise that was written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time.

The Art of War is one of the oldest and most successful books on military strategy in the world. It has had a huge influence on Eastern military thinking, business tactics, and beyond. Sun Tzu recognized the importance of positioning in strategy and that position is affected both by objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective opinions of competitive actors in that environment. He taught that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through a to-do list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a competitive environment, competing plans collide, creating unexpected situations.

The book was first translated into the French language in 1782 by French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, and into English by Sinologist Lionel Giles in 1910. It very likely influenced Napoleon, and the planning of Operation Desert Storm. Leaders as diverse as Mao Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap, Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini, and General Douglas MacArthur have claimed to have drawn inspiration from the work.

The Art of War has also been applied to business and managerial strategies.

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