Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare: A Translation of the Classic Chinese Work of Philosophy and Strategy (Chinese Philosophy Culture)

So far as I have been able to tell, this volume is a re-designed version of "Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare," by Lau and Ames, originally published in 1996 by Ballantine Books, and, like too many of the "Classics of Ancient China" series, allowed to go out of print.Besides the change in the title from Wade-Giles to Pinyin transliteration (pronounced the same way), Pinyin has been used throughout (except in citing other works), and the Chinese and English sections have been rearranged to eliminate the enormous amount of blank space in the original edition. This sacrifices convenience of layout (the Chinese text originally faced the translation, with, if necessary, only a few lines on each page) for economy. The index has likewise been revised in arrangement as well as page references. If there have been other modifications, corrections, or additions to the bibliographic references, I have missed them.There is one major omission: sixteen pages of photographs are missing (except for one, reproduced as a cover illustration). These are useful, but not essential. This was presumably in the interest of economy. Given that the previous edition is becoming more difficult to find, SUNY is to be praised for bringing the book back into print, even if this fact is somewhat obscured, and their version is slightly truncated.For those not familiar with it already, "Sun Bin" was long thought to be a bibliographic ghost, or even a lost forgery, a supposed long-missing counterpart to the existing "Art of War" of the elder Sun (Sun-tzu). It was one of the texts described in Han Dynasty bibliographies and histories, but not reliably reported as existing for well over a thousand years. The conclusions that it probably hadn't existed, or wasn't authentic if there was such a work, had to be abandoned when substantial fragments of it, and other texts, turned up in 1972, during the excavation of early Han Dynasty tombs.There have been several other translations into English during the last decade, but the co-authors of this volume make a distinguished combination of an eminent senior Sinologist, with a long career working with the problems of early literary texts (Lau) and a sophisticated modern interpreter of Chinese intellectual history (Ames). As a result, the reader is assured of first-rate technical scholarship, and clearly-expressed explanations.The emphases, not unexpectedly, are on textual and linguistic problems, and the place of the text in the development of Chinese military and political theory. Of the several other translations of the fragmentary, and in part enigmatic, text which are now available, Ralph D. Sawyer's version, as "Military Methods of The Art of War," may be the most satisfactory alternative, or, better, companion volume. It is somewhat more popular in presentation, but the most important difference is Sawyer's attempt to place the text in the military (and political) history of China, as against the history of Chinese military thought.

Bought as a gift for a family member who read "The Art of Warfarer" as required reading when he was in Special Ops in the Army.And, had been searching for a copy for his library.There are many translations of which attempt to convey the ancient wisdom of this Chinese commander.,Roger Ames' translation is an example of a good effort.

I bought this book for my husband, I was surprised to find out they had the Chinese (traditional) text printed in it as well! This is really nice because I can read Chinese text, I can assist him with the reading, while I can also understand the text better by combining the reading of two languages

Want insight into war and strategy from ancient China? No, this work should not be confused with Sun Tzu’s Art of War; it sounds similar but its Sun Pin’s The Art of Warfare. While there are similarities this is a separate military text from Chinese classical writings. Lesser known than the other work that I mentioned, I picked this work up to read it not just only for surveying strategic insight but also to see what I can gleam from the work in terms of Ancient China’s use of weapons of warfare and how their armies and military unit was organized. This was work was compiled, edited, translated and explained by both Roger T. Ames and D.C. Lau in a superb academic manner.There is a lengthy introduction running over a hundred page, but it is much needed to historically situate this military text. Discussion in the introduction include an overview of the work and also comparison and contrast between Sun Tzu’s famous work along with an analysis of the philosophical terminology in Sun Pin’s The Art of Warfare. I found all of this very helpful and insightful. The meat of the book is the text of The Art of Warfare. This is translated in three parts with the part one giving us the sixteen chapter text recovered from the Yin –Ch’ueh-Shan Han Dynasty Strips while part two is on the fifteen supplemental chapters recovered from the Yin –Ch’ueh-Shan Han Dynasty Strips. Part three then translates from text recovered from later commentarial, historical and encyclopedic sources. The appendix was also interesting for history buff with discussion of the excavation of the tombs in which the text was found and also discussion of dating these bamboo strip manuscripts.Students of military history, strategy and Chinese history would find this work fascinating. I enjoyed it.