Another Interesting Translation of Sunzi's Art of War

If you are a project manager, this book offers an interesting perspective in managing complex projects through the principles of  Sunzi.   It uses the Lionel Giles translation.

Read and enjoy.  ...  Whenever there is time, we will review this book. 

An Interesting Translation of Sunzi's Art of War

Source: Original Art of War
(updated at 060617)

This book presents superb clarity in its translation and its commentary.  ... We  cheerfully recommended it to those who are interested in a word by word translation. 

You can secure a copy at your favorite internet book store or your local book shop.

Click here if you are interested in another perspective of Sunzi's essay.

What is Strategic Power? (2)

The victorious army is like a ton compared with an ounce, while the defeated army is an ounce weight against a ton!  The combat of the victorious is like the sudden release of an pent-up torrent down a thousand-fathom gorge.  This is the strategic disposition of force.

Now the army's disposition of force is like water. Water's configuration avoids heights and races downward. The army's disposition of force avoids the substantial and strikes the vacuous. Water configures its flow in accord with the terrain;  the army controls it victory  in accord with the enemy.

What is Strategic Power? (1)

 

The gist of strategic power is to exploit the advantages conferred by the tactical balance of power. Increase the opposition's excesses, seize what he loves. Then we, acting from without, can cause a response from within. 

The victorious army is like a ton compared with an ounce while the defeated army is like an ounce weighed against a ton. The combat of the victorious is like the sudden release of a pent-up torrent down a thousand -fathom gorge. This is the strategic disposition of force.  

The strategic configuration of power is visible in the onrush of pent-up water tumbling stones along. The effect of constraints is visible in the onrush of a bird of prey breaking the bones of its target.Thus the strategic configuration of power of those that excel in warfare is sharpy focused, their constraints are precise. Their strategic configuration of power is like a fully drawn crossbow, their constraints like the release of the trigger.

Intermixed and turbulent, the fighting appears chaotic, but they cannot be made disordered. In turmoil and confusion, their deployment is circular and they cannot be defeated.  

Identifying Deception in the Global Economy

The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry, which can on no account be neglected.

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when we are far away, we must make him believe we are near.

- Lionel Giles translation of the Sunzi's Art of War


At this moment, anywhere in our world, there is a "sucker" game that is occurring.

One of those games is the army shell game where a street hustler would be on the street with a pellet and three plastic cups. He would take out the pea, shuffle the cups and take wagers on which cup that the pea was under.

At the end of the day,  he would return home with hundreds of dollars in his pocket.

I noticed that none of the suckers were able to choose which cup had the pea under it because the hustler  made such a show of shuffling the cups around that they never notice that the pea is hidden in his palm.”

Conclusion
Do not get deceived by large press  conferences or celebrity attended events.  .... Do not get hacked by smoke, mirrors, and bright, shiny objects (bso).  ... Do not get sucked by fake news or alternative news.  

Always mindfully assess the situation strategically from a third party perspective.


 

How to Be An Expert in The World of Pseudo Experts

(updated at 16:16 hrs)

In the information economy, there are experts and pseudo experts.  

The fundamentals in selling this specific service do not change too often.  ...   The strategic attributes of price, quality, and good customer service do count   

In our "loud" economy,  noise prevails than signal.   Brand experience is about creating a subtle level of deception while .  Selling short term gratification to the naive. 


To be The Expert in a Noisy Setting 
He or she does not  waste much time on "twittering" or "facebooking"  

He  or she does not waste much inspiring people (Preachers who sell smoke, bells, whistles, snake oil and paper noodles, are great at this activity.)     They do not spent time telling people to join their community. Some of them belonged to this group.

They are focused on solving tangible problems while staying ahead of the curve.

Those who don't, usually do not know how things work and why it works.  But they are able to sell instant answers to the mindless audience.  Pursuing that option and succeeding is subjective because the quantity of quality competition. 

Paraphrasing what the late Bill Walsh said in an early 2000's commercial, "the best coach (strategist) is one who stays focused on the game while being mindful of its settings. ... He can see all 22 players in motion."

In other words, seeing how objects and events are synchronized for that grand strategic moment.

The Essence of the Expert 
The "real" experts are the ones who recognize the on-coming question while their counter-parts are focused on understanding the current answer.  

Depending on the configuration of the situation, they can perform that action without a technological mean!

q: Do you know what are the specifics for that methodology? 

So, how does one stays focused on the game while being mindful of its settings? 

Can You Truly Become The Expert?

It depends greatly on the following attributes:

• one's will to learn as much as possible;
• one's will to to persist and to succeed;
• one's network of subject-based experts;
• one's ability to prioritize and 
• one ability to connect the dots 
• one's ability to capitalize on the connection efficiently before the cycle of opportunity is over.

Having the skillset to assess, position and influence is important.  

Remember, the depthness of one's expertise will triumph over  experience.

More to come.

Gaining the Strategic Advantage

(updated at 1555 hrs)

In an quasi-predictable setting, one strategic classic has stated that the smart strategist anticipates a minimum of two steps ahead of your customers and/or your competition while being half a step, ahead of the competition.

Click here for more information 

A Clue to Using Sunzi's Five Critical Strategic Factors as a Strategic Tool

What are the Five Critical Strategic Factors (CSFs)?

• Dao (The Way) is the singularity
• Tien (Heaven) is the cyclical state 
• Dian (Earth) is the strategic situation
• Jiang (General) is the leadership qualities
• Fa (Methods, processes, etc.) is the efficacy of logistics and economics 

Based on the information relating to the Five CSF, does the chief decision maker possessed the leadership qualities and the processes to match or to exceed the strategic criteria of the singularity.  

You can read more about it on Chapter One of the Sun zi essay.

Using The Heaven Factor and The Earth Factor as a Guide

“Among the spiritual nothing is more honored than Heaven, among strategic power nothing more conductive than earth, among movements nothing more urgent than time, and among employments nothing more advantageous than man. Now these fours are the trunks and branches of the army. But they must rely the Tao before they can be implemented and attain unified employment.

Now advantages of Earth overcome season of Heaven; skillful attacks overcome advantages of Earth; strategic power conquers men. Those who rely on Heaven can be confused, who rely on Earth can be constrainted, who rely on time can be pressed and who rely on men can be deluded. Now benevolence, courage, trust and purity are attractive human attributes, but the courageous can be enticed; the benevolent can be seized, the trusting can be deceived, and the pure are easily plotted against. If the army’s commander displays any one of these attributes, he will be captured. From this perspective, it is clear that armies control victory through the patterns of the Tao, not through relying upon the talents of worthies. Only those worth form cannot be ensnared. For the reason the Sage conceals himself in the originless so that his emotions cannot be perceived. He moves in the formless so that deployment cannot be fathomed. Without tactics or appearance, he acts appropriately.  Without name or shape, he changes and creates an image. Even among those with acute victory,. Who can spy out his nature?”

Huai-nan Tzu, a Daoist-Strategist

-      Ping-luen -hsun

Understanding the Big Tangible Picture (BTP)

(updated at 16:16 hrs)

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete. …”   - Sunzi 10

Regardless of the lack of experience and insights from the field strategists, there are multiple meanings to this thought.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt;

Knowing the competition and knowing yourself is not enough.   ...  You have know the reasons behind him or her in terms of motives, methods and strategic foundation.

It could look discouraging for those who realized that the competition possesses an abundance of resources.  By knowing the state of their motive and their methods, there is always an opportunity to subvert him if one knows the why's behind the motive and the methods..

if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete. …”

There are multiple meanings to this statement

The Basic Meaning

While terrain is about the characteristics of a strategic situation, the heaven is about the rate of cyclical change that supports the current strategic situation.

The Secondary Meaning

From a geographic perspective, the terrain factor is about topographic settings to a landscape while the heaven factor is about the external influences that are affecting the terrain.

Another Perspective

“Given a knowledge of three matters—the affairs of men, the seasons of heavens and the natural advantages of earth—victory will invariably crown your battles. “ – Li Ch’uan   

More to Come

Other Insights on Sunzi's Art of War: Alastair Iain Johnston's Sunzi Studies in the United States (Part 2)

An associate found a classic 31 pager on the perspective of Sunzi's essay from the western mind. It was published by Alastair Iain Johnston (江忆恩) of Harvard University in July 1999. 

Click here for part 1.

Scroll down for part 2 of this document 

SUN ZI STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES

by  Alastair Iain Johnston  江忆恩

Associate Professor

Government Department

Harvard University

July 25, 1999

SUN ZI STUDIES IN THE THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

Sun Zi studies are limited to a small community of Sinologists, historians and philosophers in the U.S. There has been relatively little direct research on ancient Chinese military thought, still less on Sun Zi specifically. For example, there were no articles devoted to the study of Sun Zi’s thought in the 1980s and 1990s issues of the premier journal on pre-modern China, the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, and there were only a couple of articles on ancient Chinese military thought. A search of the index of articles for another high-profile journal, The Journal of Asian Studies also shows no articles specifically about Sun Zi, nor indeed about ancient Chinese military thought in general. 11

There have been at about 5 major PhD dissertations on ancient Chinese military thought since the 1970s that all, in one way or another, discuss Sun Zi. One by Christopher Rand, focused on six different ‘schools’ within ‘militarist’ (bingjia 兵家) thought up to the Han Dynasty. 12

In particular he traces the historical evolution of the ‘wen’  (文)  versus ‘wu’  (武)  debate in statecraft. He extends this analysis up to the Tang Dynasty as well to see how this debate evolved in an era of very different military technology and military strategic challenges. In particular he identifies and expands on what he calls the ‘metaphysical’ school of military affairs in the Tang, the school which stressed the metaphysical qualities (qi 气) of an ideal general. 13

Another, by Robin Yates, focused on theory and practice of siege defense in ancient China, based on an analysis of the writings of Mo Zi and his disciples. 14

Another by Edmund Balmforth provided the first English-language translation and analysis of Sun Bin’s work on strategy. 15

Alastair Iain Johnston’s dissertation analyzed the Seven Military Classics (武经七书) to determine what influence they had on Ming strategy towards the Mongols.16

Likewise, David Graff analyzed the effect of ancient Chinese military thought on the ways of warfare during the Tang dynasty. He found that practical experience was more likely a better source of strategic ideas than Warring States period texts. 17

In addition to these dissertations there have been a small number of specialized books published on topics relating to ancient Chinese military thought. In his book, Sanctioned Violence in Early China , Mark Lewis examined the role of ‘sanctioned violence’ in the political transitions from the Spring and Autumn to the Warring States period. He shows how sanctioned violence evolved from a highly ritualistic and symbolic use of hunting, limited engagements among warrior aristocrats evolved into larger-scale ‘interstate’ conflicts involving mass soldiers commanded by more or less professional officers. Lewis is the first US scholar to extract and  examine the concept of quan bian, and its impact on military thought and practice in early China. 18

In his book, Cultural Realism, Alastair Iain Johnston examined the role of strategic culture in strategic decision making during Ming conflicts with the Mongols. He analyzed the ‘deep structure’ of the Seven Military Classics to see whether there was a consistent preference ranking among offensive, defensive and accomodationist grand strategies across these texts. He then asked whether these preference rankings had any effect on strategic choice in the Ming dynasty. His conclusions challenged the traditional view that ancient Chinese military thought stressed defensiveness and even an anti-militarism.

19

Instead, he argued, these texts embodied certain realpolitik axioms, similar to those in Western strategic thought, and that their influence was seen in the fact that Ming strategists generally preferred, when material conditions allowed them, offensive strategies to deal with the Mongol threat. 20

Johnston argues that the traditional Confucian view of China’s own strategic traditions underestimate the degree to which the offensive use of military force was advocated in traditional Chinese thought and practice. This argument is controversial and at the moment is a minority interpretation of Sun Zi and other ancient Chinese military thinkers.       

But together this research does not constitute a coherent body of work, nor are the authors addressing similar issues. Indeed there is little direct debate over the Sun Zi text because there has been so little written on the topic in the Sinological community. The research in the 1980s through 1990s has generally not focused on the intellectual or philosophical content of ancient Chinese military thought. Rather it has tended to focus on on military history and operations (Tang, Song and Ming strategy). 21

In the 1990s, a group of historians and scholars of Chinese philosophy set up a Chinese Military History Group. But Sun Zi’s military thought is not the primary focus of this group. The underdeveloped nature of Sun Zi studies in the scholarly community is underscored by the fact that there been no major scholarly conferences in the US focused on Sun Zi’s text in the 1980s or 1990s. There is the potential for a major debate over the Sun Zi text as a pragmatic source of more or less universal ideas for military strategists versus its status as a uniquely Chinese philosophical text on violence. The lines of such a debate are evidenced in the differences between the approach to the text taken by Ralph Sawyer and by Michael Handel (see below) on the one hand and Roger Ames on the other. However, this potential faultline in Sun Zi studies has not really developed into a full-blown academic debate. There are simply too few people in the academic world working on these issues, and too little is at stake currently in terms of intellectual development for scholars to stake a position one way or the other.

SUN ZI AND THE BUSINESS WORLD

There has been an increase in the popular attention paid to Sun Zi and business over the 1980s and 1990s. Mostly Sun Zi is treated as a source of ideas about how to understand market opportunities. One author, Bernard A. Boar models his book, The Art of Strategic Planning for Information Technology on the Sun Zi text. 22

Boar argues that “The majority of aspiring strategists would be much better off studying the teachings of Sun Zi and Machiavelli than most teachers of business or information management strategy.”

In most cases, however, the application of Sun Zi to business tends to be somewhat faddish and shallow, the reduction of the text to easy-to-remember aphorisms and platitudes. While many business people have read the text, it is not the subject of study in major US business schools. In contrast to the US military education system, the US business education system evidently does not find much concrete value in the text as a source of instruction for future business leaders. Top American business schools put a great deal of emphasis on training in accounting, economics, statistics, and organizational sociology. 23

The adaptation of strategy from war studies to business is not seen as a particular important part of professional business education, and there are no courses devoted to the discussion of Sun Zi’s application to business in the major schools. There are, for instance, no specific courses devoted to Sun Zi and business taught at the Harvard School of Business or at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

A handful of business entrepreneurs offer short-term training programs, books, and cassette tapes that apply Sun Zi in a facile way to some aspect of business. The objective is almost always to make money by charging for these services.24

Typical of the application of Sun Zi to business is the consulting service provided by Jim Hight, a former financial consultant to the Merrill Lynch company.25

Hight defines the ‘enemy’ in markets as other “participants”, such as firms and companies. He uses quotations from the Clavell, Griffiths and Sawyer translations of Sun Zi. His approach is to move through the Sun Zi text translating each major line or concept into an analogical example for financial managers. For instance, in reference to Sun Zi’s comment in chapter one on the importance of ‘xian sheng er hou zhan’ ( 先胜而后战), Hight draws from this the parallel advice in business: “Always manage within the context of a written strategic plan that has been prepared from an objective analysis of market information. The plan should include very specific guidelines for money management, trade selection, risk control, and profit taking.”

In reference to Sun Zi’s famous dictum that “deception is the essence of war”, Hight states: “Although, as individual portfolio managers and risk managers, we have limited ability to deceive and manipulate the markets, however, we can minimize the opportunity for other market participants to impair our success by keeping our strategies and tactics to ourselves. Allow strategies and tactics to become apparent only when results have been secured and if disclosure enables rational and gainful business development efforts, or when regulatory reporting requirements necessitate.” 

As another example, concerning the concept of flexibility in Sun Zi’s chapter 5, where the commander is urged to change operations as strategic circumstances change, Hight notes in a rather vague way: “The way to capitalize on the endless opportunities created by ever-changing market conditions, is to become engaged as a part of a well thought out trading plan and be flexible in adapting to conditions within the context of the plan. In so doing we will become a part of the markets' energy flow and, thereby, continually improve our ability to successfully understand and utilize market conditions to our advantage.” The advice is, like the Sun Zi text itself, general enough to be very hard to apply specifically in practice.

Interestingly enough, the application of metaphors from war and conflict to business introduces two tensions into the ‘ethics’ of business. The first is that in the Sun Zi text there is no developed concept of a ‘just war’. For Sun Zi the ‘ends justify the means’. Using warfare metaphors, particularly from the Sun Zi text, raises questions about whether Sun Zi-influenced business practices would be unrestrained by business and societal ethics. The second, and related, tension is between market economics conceived as a search for win-win, non-zero sum solutions to contractual problems on the one hand, and economics conceived as a zero-sum war where the objective is the defeat of all adversaries and competitors on the other. In the US the use of Sun Zi as a guide to business often seems to promote this latter view of economics. 

--- More to come ---

This post will be updated and refined later this week.

Other Insights on Sunzi's Art of War: Alastair Iain Johnston's Sunzi Studies in the United States (Part 1)

An associate found this classic 31 pager on the perspective of Sunzi's essay from the western mind. It was published by Alastair Iain Johnston (江忆恩) of Harvard University in July 1999. 

Read and enjoy.  

Following is an abridged portion of that document 

SUN ZI STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES

by  Alastair Iain Johnston  江忆恩

Associate Professor

Government Department

Harvard University

July 25, 1999

INTRODUCTION

There is no doubt that in the 1980s and 1990s American scholars, business  people and military officers have become more aware of Sun Zi’s Art of War. Phrases and axioms from Sun Zi’s text have also gradually moved into the popular imagination through some well-placed lines in movies, by comments from famous sports figures, and in other arenas of popular culture. For instance, Gordon Gecko, the evil protagonist businessman in the popular 1980s movie “Wall Street”, quoted Sun Zi in the movie. The famous National Basketball Association coach Pat Riley quotes Sun Zi in his book The Winner Within: A Life Plan for Team Players (1993).

However, it is also true that the serious study and research of Sun Zi is very underdeveloped in the United States, especially in comparison with Sun Zi studies  in China and Japan. This chapter provides a brief examination of the state of Sun Zi studies in the United States. It begins by describing the major English-language translations of Sun Zi in the United States. It then goes on to summarize the status of Sun Zi studies in the US academic community, in business education and training, and in the US military.

TRANSLATIONS

The publication of scholarly translations of the Sun Zi text by major American publishing houses has remained relatively constant over the 1990s. As Figure 1 shows, there has been no major surge in new translations or new book-length analyses of the text. The annual production of books on Sun Zi has remained relatively constant.

As of the late 1990s, there are five main translations of Sun Zi used by American academics, business people and/or military officers. The first is Samuel Griffiths translation, first published in 1963, and reprinted over the past 25 years. 1

Griffiths, a retired U.S. Marine general at the time he translated Sun Zi, used the Song Ben Shi Yi Jia Zhu Sun Zi (宋 本十一家注孙子) version as his basic text. Indeed, the value of Griffiths translation is that he provides translations from historical commentators on the text. This allows readers to examine the nuanced  differences in how particular passages were interpreted at different points in Chinese history. The other value to the text is the forward by the famous British strategist, Basil Liddell Hart. Hart used Sun Zi to justify his critique of Clausewitz for his over-emphasis on the so-called ‘direct’ approach, defined as the massive application of military power at the enemy’s ‘center of gravity’. Liddell Hart blamed Clausewitizian thinking for the disasterous violence of the First World War (subsequent defenders of Clausewitz accuse Liddell Hart of misreading the German strategists and for mistakening playing up differences between Clausewitz and Sun Zi). While Griffiths’ translation is easy to read, as Chinese scholars have pointed out much of the information the translations provides about the Sun Zi text itself and about its impact on Chinese military thought is out of date. New research on the Griffiths text has focused on the relationship between the historical context of his translation. Griffiths saw his text has a tool for influencing senior US military and political leaders about how to deal with revolutionary warfare in the Third World.

According to one scholar who has examined Griffiths papers and letters, Griffiths asked that the publisher of his translation distribute copies to top leaders in the Department of Defense, Department of State and the White House, as well as key journalists and opinion-makers. The goals was to warn US strategic decisionmakers about the methods that China, North Vietnam and other revolutionary states were using to threaten United States interests. 2

Griffiths assumed that Sun Zi was a key influence on Mao Zedong’s military thought, and that Mao was a key inspiration for revolutionary guerilla war movements in the Third World. The Griffiths translation was the primary one available to American readers from the early 1960s through to the late 1980s. Since then, with the publication of two other major translations (see below), the Griffiths text is no longer the main translation used in the academic community or in the US military education system. In the 1980s, two new translations appeared in US bookstores. One was edited by the well-know fiction writer James Clavell and was published in 1983.3

This version has little scholarly value, however, as it is simply a re-publication of Lionel Giles 1910 version, with a few minor footnotes and comments. The introduction claims, rather hyperbolically, that the text should be required reading for US military officers because were they to internalized Sun Zi’s teachings they would be able to avoid costly conflicts in the future. A second translation that appeared in the 1980s was done by Thomas Cleary.4

Cleary, a translator of many other texts from the Buddhist and Daoist traditions, stresses the defensive, even Daoist, nature of Sun Zi’s text. This translation, however, is highly controversial among Sinologists, some of whom believe he takes too many liberties with the original text, injecting meanings that are not justified by the original Chinese language. Neither the Clavell nor the Cleary translations is taken very seriously by Sinologists, and for the most part neither translations is used in the US military education system. In the 1990s two new major translations appeared, one by Ralph Sawyer, a Hong Kong based businessperson, and one by Roger Ames, a philosophy professor at the University of Hawaii.5

Sawyer first published a translation of Sun Zi as part of the first English translation of the entire Seven Military Classics (WuJing Qi Shu) in 1993. This was followed in 1994 by a separate translation of the Sun Zi text alone. The Sawyer text focuses on Sun Zi as a manual for military strategy and operations. Thus it provides a fairly extensive discussion of the patterns in warfare, strategy, tactics and weapons from the Shang dynasty through

to the Warring States period. Sawyer provides extensive footnotes to pre-modern and modern specialists on Sun Zi in order to establish the historical accuracy of the text and its references to warfare of the Warring States period. In particularly he relies on the research work of Professor Li Ling from Peking University and Professor Wu Rusong from the Academy of Military Sciences. In his translation, Sawyer also examines a range of earlier annotations and commentaries. He relies heavily on the Ming dynasty commentator, Liu Yin’s Wu Jing Qi Shu Zhijie (明本武经七书直解) and on the retired Guomingdang general Wei Rulin’s Sun Zi Bing Fa Da Quan (孙子兵法大全) Because Sawyer tends to focus on the operational side of the text -- how it was used historically, what it says about historical warfare in ancient China, and what advice it provides practitioners of warfare -- his translation is used in many of the institutions in the US military education system.

The Ames text focuses more on the differences between Chinese and Western philosophical traditions and how the Sun Zi text can be treated as a text on philosophy. He notes that he is interested in the “cultural presuppositions” that are needed to understand Sun Zin from “its own world view”. Ames argues that military philosophy was a common topic in many of the works on political philosophy in ancient China and thus should be seen as a part of process of developing a distinctive Chinese philosophy, not as a separate field of military thought. Ames takes on a question that few Western specialists have asked, namely why is there such an rich tradition of military philosophy in an allegedly anti- militarist culture?6

He suggests that military action provides a metaphor for all other types of human behavior, and that in Chinese tradition military action was “applied5

philosophy”. His basic argument is that in both civil and military action the consumate actor is one whose character tries to achieve order through harmonizing himself with changing circumstances. In contrast to Western assumptions that there are two worlds -- a perfect, predestined, independent world that will be created through purposeful action, a teleology -- ancient Chinese philosophy assumed that order already existed in things, and was not imposed on things. The Dao was not a teleology, but a recognition of the completeness of existing reality. Harmony arose from “personal cultivation and refinement” whether in the civil or military arenas.

Ames provides an extensive discussion of several key concepts in the Sun Zi text which, he argues, reflects this philosophical tradition: the concept of yin 因, or to act in accord with the enemy, a “responsiveness to one’s context”7; the concept of shi  势 , which he translates as “strategic advantage” where all situations can be turned to one’s advantage through manipulating self and adversary, shaping the environment according to the concept of yin. Shi relies on genius, not just military skill, since no situation is ever the same. 8

The Ames text is unique in that it makes explicit use of the Yin Que Shan manuscript, and the Ma Wang Dui scripts. He also introduces readers to the evidence concerning the identities of Sun Wu and Sun Bin. Like Sawyer’s text it also uses a number of historical and contemporary commentaries. While Sawyer relies on Liu Yin’s commentaries, Ames relies heavily on Wu Jiulong’s text for interpretations of key passages.9

###

1   Samuel B. Griffith, Sun Tzu: The Art of War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963)

2   I thank Ed O’Dowd for this information about Griffiths.

3  James Clavell ed., The Art of War: Sun Tzu (New York: Delacort, 1983)

4  Thomas Cleary, translator, The Art of War: Sun Tzu (Boston: Shambala Press, 1988)

5 Ralph Sawyer, translator, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993) and Ralph Sawyer, translator, Sun Tzu: The Art of War (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994) and Roger Ames, translator, Sun Tzu The Art of War (New York, Ballantine Books, 1993)

6 Ames p.40

7   Ibid., p.83

8  Ibid., p. 71-80, 8

9  Wu Jiulong, Sun Zi Jiao Shi   （孙子校释)(Beijing, Academy of Military Sciences Press, 1990)

-- More to come ---
This post will be updated and refined later this week.