Ralph D. Sawyer

Sun Tzu's Art of War, a very intelligent yet slippery and devious book, is the centerpiece here. Some of the other military classics seem to have aged awkwardly; but there are some hidden gems, especially the Three Strategies of Huang Shih-Kung. These Three Strategies are brief; their advice on war is kind of dubious; but their vision of statecraft in general and of civil administration is both profoundly moral and profoundly compelling.

This is one of a series of books by this author focusing on various aspects of Chinese military strategy. As such, it glides over the history and central concepts and hones in on one aspect: the unorthodox as a tool of war. The text gets a bit repetitive, but that is due to its attempt to document a single idea through the historical record.

I choose this book because I am interested in the place of Zhuge Liang in the pantheon of Chinese strategists. Sawyer claims that the historical figure show more was a mediocre general, but he also shows that his fictional counterpart in The Three Kingdoms was, as I thought, a master of the unorthodox. show less

Ralph Sawyer presents here in English complete translations of the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China: Jiang Ziya (Taigong)'s Six Secret Teachings, The Methods of the Sima, Sun Zi's The Art of War, Wu Qi's Wuzi, Wei Liaozi, Three Strategies of Huang Shigong and Questions and Replies between Tang Taizong and Li Weigong. While the Art of War by Sun Zi is the best known of the seven, the other six are also interesting and valuable resources for understanding Chinese military thought and show more its role in Chinese philosophy.

Sawyer's translations are well-done and the book benefits greatly from his detailed historical commentaries that contextualise these seven works. The translations are readable but do not sacrifice the meaning of the texts for ease of comprehension. However, in using Wade-Giles Romanisation, the lay reader can get confused when using more modern research or texts in Pinyin. The only other downside is that the original Classical Chinese is not included but Chinese editions rectify that.

In all, this is an excellent piece of not only scholarship for both sinologists and military historians but also an excellent introduction to Chinese military thought and its influence on two millennia of East Asian thinking. show less

The tactics are fascinating. Unfortunately, this book spends most of its time elaborating on the history of warfare scholarship, which is boring as hell.