Sun Pin

Lost for some 2,000 years and rediscovered only by chance in 1972, Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare is now recognized as one of the essential texts of classical Chinese military philosophy. In this new edition, D. C. Lau and Roger T. Amers, eminent scholars of Chinese philosophy and widely respected translators, offer a comprehensive translation of the Sun Pin texts, along with extensive notes and commentary. The publication of this volume returns the work of one of the great military innovators to the canon of Chinese literature. Sun Pin essentially a philosopher of the battlefield, ponders such key concepts as the exemplary ruler, the importance of strategy and morale, and the advantages to be gained from adaptability, display, and discretion. Yet these texts are also clearly intended to be practical and to be used to maximum effect on the battlefield. As Sun Pin writes, "for one who has really mastered the way of warfare, his enemy can do nothing to escape death.". This new edition of Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare includes not only the sixteen chapters and fragments of the main text recovered at Yin-ch'ueh-shan in 1972, but also fifteen supplementary chapters and three extracts from the encyclopedic tradition.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.