The Art of War - Sun Tzu

[E5RANGER375]

every soldier and patriot should own a copy of this book

 

[j706]

I had one. A friend borrowed it and never gave it back. Guess I'll have to get a new one.

If you like that book, another good one to read would be Il Principe by Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Same here.

 

[Hammerhead]

I bought a copy back when I was a teenager. I was never able to get into it, no matter how much I really wanted to read it. So I shelved it and have not touched it for years. I just went and made sure it was still there and pulled it off.

Now I'm going to have to try to read it. Thanks a lot.

 

[SirRealism]

I bought it a few years ago and put it into my queue. Thanks to your prompting, I'm going to start it now.

 

[Jack Ryan]

What would Sun Tzu suggest gives the most tactical advantage, openly displaying your weapons available for offense/defense or keeping information concerning those weapons and abilities concealed from your enemies until you are ready to use them?

 

[Hoosier8]

Stole mine.

 

[Juggernaut]

Juggernaut recommends it, it must be G2G!

Dude, Starship troopers...... among other Heinlein books

I read hagakure, too... I decided the Bushido was flawed because I lack the ability to kill myself over a displeasing, drunken puppet show....

 

[Jack Ryan]

I bought a copy back when I was a teenager. I was never able to get into it, no matter how much I really wanted to read it. So I shelved it and have not touched it for years. I just went and made sure it was still there and pulled it off.

Now I'm going to have to try to read it. Thanks a lot.

Try the Book of Five Rings first. Look for the nearest to nothing but the original translation with out a bunch of blarney from second rate interpretors.

Musashi is a master. It doesn't need some one else to crap all over it for you to learn. This is not a big long winded load to read. It's concise and clear. You could read it once a week for a year and learn something new or a new application of the knowledge every time.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Book-Five-Rings-Classic-Strategy/dp/0517415283]Amazon.com: Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy (9780517415283): Miyamoto Musashi: Books[/ame]

 

[Jack Ryan]

every soldier and patriot should own a copy of this book

Even better they should read and study a copy regardless if they own it.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Seems many here are well caught up on their reading so I'd also like to share/recomend this as well.
Master Gichin Funakoshi
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Karate-Do-Way-Life-Gichin-Funakoshi/dp/0870114638"]Amazon.com: Karate-Do: My Way of Life (9780870114632): Gichin Funakoshi: Books: Reviews, Prices & more[/ame]

If you find it valuable to you he has written a couple of other books you may be interested in depending on your interests.

 

[Hammerhead]

I do remember Sun Tzu being quoted by many people - "only seek battle after the victory has been won." He also says "All war is deception...when strong, feign weakness, when weak, feign strength." However, to answer your question about which Sun Tzu would consider best, OC or CC, I had to try to use the index, and some collected quotes on the internet. This leads me to two sides of the coin.

Sun Tzu would probably be a proponent of concealing one's weaponry before the battle to appear weak. Pretending to be weak could make an enemy become arrogant, and thus easily lulled into an unexpected attack. "In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them."

However, the other side of the coin is to show your strength, thereby making an enemy decide not to attack. "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak."

So I guess the argument could be made both ways. What then is the best method, considering what Sun Tzu teaches? To carry openly one weapon, and conceal several others. This way you can show strength to deter an attack, yet if you are disarmed or outgunned, you can appear weak until you bring out your backup.

However, Sun Tzu also says that you should only use weapons as a last resort, and that capturing your enemy is preferable to killing them.

 

[Hammerhead]

Try the Book of Five Rings first. Look for the nearest to nothing but the original translation with out a bunch of blarney from second rate interpretors.

Musashi is a master. It doesn't need some one else to crap all over it for you to learn. This is not a big long winded load to read. It's concise and clear. You could read it once a week for a year and learn something new or a new application of the knowledge every time.

Amazon.com: Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy (9780517415283): Miyamoto Musashi: Books

The reason I shelved it until now is due to my inability to concentrate on the way it was jumping. I expected a book to read from front to back. However, it wasn't the translation, but the addition of commentary by other people explaining or adding to what Sun Tzu was saying. Now that I know what my version is doing, I get it. Even just attempting to find relevant passages to what I just posted, I understood it a lot better than I did back then.

I got impatient with it back then. Now, it shouldn't be as much of a bother. But I wouldn't mind reading Book of Five Rings. Musashi has been spoken of in another series of books I've read.

 

[Jack Ryan]

The reason I shelved it until now is due to my inability to concentrate on the way it was jumping. I expected a book to read from front to back. However, it wasn't the translation, but the addition of commentary by other people explaining or adding to what Sun Tzu was saying. Now that I know what my version is doing, I get it. Even just attempting to find relevant passages to what I just posted, I understood it a lot better than I did back then.

I got impatient with it back then. Now, it shouldn't be as much of a bother. But I wouldn't mind reading Book of Five Rings. Musashi has been spoken of in another series of books I've read.

That irritated the heck out of me. I have several copies and Book of Five Rings has been done the same way. It's hard to find one with out the second rate analysis. On the copy I kept at work for opportunities to read, I finally got out a marker and just blacked out the blather as I read through it one time. I found it much more enjoyable to read and easier to stay on track stopping and starting at the surrounding enviroment dictated. It also helped when I'd cross significant passages I wanted to consider for a while before continueing. In fact that was my favorite copy for quite a while.

 

[theweakerbrother]

Try the Book of Five Rings first. Look for the nearest to nothing but the original translation with out a bunch of blarney from second rate interpretors.

Musashi is a master. It doesn't need some one else to crap all over it for you to learn. This is not a big long winded load to read. It's concise and clear. You could read it once a week for a year and learn something new or a new application of the knowledge every time.

Amazon.com: Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy (9780517415283): Miyamoto Musashi: Books

I just ordered the paperback book for 3.99 from Amazon... that is shipped and overnighted with a free prime membership. I figure I can read a passage a day and try it out.

 

[Bushido Devil Dog]

Try the Book of Five Rings first. Look for the nearest to nothing but the original translation with out a bunch of blarney from second rate interpretors.

Musashi is a master. It doesn't need some one else to crap all over it for you to learn.

And you can get even more out of it if you are able to read the original Japanese text (as I can, albeit with some difficulty with the old-school Japanese) without the need to have the meaning filtered through a translator, no matter how skilled they may be.

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4480091947/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=466449256&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=4003300211&pf_rd_m=AN1VRQENFRJN5&pf_rd_r=0DHE04RRPH3G64YBH8YX"]宮本武蔵の「五輪書」[/ame]


The Victor Harris translation is excellent, and provides some valuable insight about the times Musashi lived in as well as a biography of the man versus the legendary figure he has become.

"Go rin no sho" (in Japanese: 五輪書) is one of those books that you can read over and over through out your life and always take away something new from it.

My collection of Warrior strategy/philosophy books, with 5/5 thumbs rating guide:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Book-Five-Rings-Classic-Strategy/dp/0879510188/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287338706&sr=1-6"]A Book of Five Rings - Miyamoto Musashi, translated by Victor Harris[/ame]. I highly recommend this version. My signature is a quote from the original Japanese text.

武蔵と五輪書 (= "Musashi and A Book of Five Rings") - A book I bought that has some guy's comments followed by the original text with furigana for all of the kanji. Because the Japanese is from over 300 years ago, even native Japanese need help in reading the kanji he used to write his masterpiece.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Pocket-Shambhala-Classics/dp/0877735379/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1287338621&sr=1-1"]The Art of War - Sun Tzu, translated by Thomas Cleary[/ame]. I wish he would have given us just the original text, without the comments/interpretations of subsequent scholars that follows every passage. Quite annoying and distracting. Five thumbs for Sun Tzu's original text, but becasue of the comments cluttering it up this version:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Lao-Tzu-Ching-Institute-Translations/dp/0877733880/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287338527&sr=1-2"]Tao Teh Ching - Lao Tzu, translated by John C.H. Wu[/ame] (not John Woo the action flick director ) Another book I HIGHLY recommend. This version has the original Chinese on the left side of the page, and the translation on the right side; a set up I wish all of my books like this had. I can't speak Chinese, but since almost all Kanji are Chinese imports, I can recognize the meaning of many of them, which helps somewhat in understanding the text.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Way-Martial-Arts-Japanese/dp/0140193448"]The Zen Way to the Martial Arts[/ame] - Taisen Deshimaru An excellent text that nicely bridges Zen philosophy and martial arts practice. Easy and entertaining to read.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Living-Martial-Way-Manual-Warrior/dp/0942637763/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top"]Living the Martial Way[/ame] - Forrest E. Morgan. Highly recommended. Lots of reviews on Amazon as to why.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Hagakure-Book-Samurai-Yamamoto-Tsunetomo/dp/4770029160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287334408&sr=1-1"]Hagakure[/ame] - Yamamoto Tsunetomo, translated by William Scott Wilson. More a collection of anecdotes than a strategic/philosophical text IMHO, but still an interesting snapshot of the mindset of the Samurai, with a few 'deep words' thrown in to keep it interesting.



One book that I DO NOT recommend is "Bushido: The Soul of Japan" by Nitobe Inazo. I bought a bi-lingual version of this here in Japan, and started to read it, but it became readily apparent to me that the author wrote the book not so much to explain Japanese warrior culture as to engage in what I will call "academic masturbation". Originally written in English in a rather stilted, stuffy, and overly complex style, my impression of it is as a work written not for those interested in the Warrior lifestyle, but as an exercise in trying to show the academic world how educated, clever, and oh-so-pasty white he had become. (He converted to Christianity, became a Quaker, and married a fat white broad. ) When he writes about Samurai boys upon receiving their first real blades, "...he marches out to try their edge on wood and stone," it is enough to show that despite his Samurai ancestory, he himself was not raised as one. Don't waste your time reading this academic's conjecture about what Bushido means, because as a career academic and Western culture fanboy, he was never interested in living it.

 

[Hammerhead]

That irritated the heck out of me. I have several copies and Book of Five Rings has been done the same way. It's hard to find one with out the second rate analysis. On the copy I kept at work for opportunities to read, I finally got out a marker and just blacked out the blather as I read through it one time. I found it much more enjoyable to read and easier to stay on track stopping and starting at the surrounding enviroment dictated. It also helped when I'd cross significant passages I wanted to consider for a while before continueing. In fact that was my favorite copy for quite a while.

Don't get me wrong, it's not some academic douche or other idiocy that is adding to it, it's other generals or people from Chinese history that are speaking on the topics that Sun Tzu wrote about. While the translator does add notes, mainly through normal footnotes, he doesn't add in his own conjecture, speculation or opinion. Having browsed the pages lately, I see that the additions are helpful, either by providing a more concise thought, or updating it to their own time.

If you're interested in seeing the one I have, it's [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Sun-Tzu/dp/0195014766/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287362799&sr=8-1"]this version here[/ame].

 

[Juggernaut]

Uhhhhh... post #14.. free audio book downloads.....
Just sayin'......

 

[Woodsman]

Seems many here are well caught up on their reading so I'd also like to share/recomend this as well.
Master Gichin Funakoshi
Amazon.com: Karate-Do: My Way of Life (9780870114632): Gichin Funakoshi: Books: Reviews, Prices & more

If you find it valuable to you he has written a couple of other books you may be interested in depending on your interests.

Another really good one is Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere. One I wish I had was a very old copy (circa 1910 or thereabouts) on judo. There were some excellent examples in the back of the book. I had the opportunity to quickly look at a copy about 15-20 years almost under armed guard.

Old school is the best school....

 

[Juggernaut]

Richard Strozzi Heckler, In Search of the. Warrior Spirit

In Search of the Warrior Spirit ... - Google Books

 

[troy2198]

Would love to read this book. So much to gain from this in every aspect of life.