Sun Tsu, um 544 um 496 v. Chr., war ein chinesischer General, Militärstratege und Philosoph. Bekannt ist er durch sein Werk "Die Kunst des Krieges", welches das früheste Buch über Strategie überhaupt und auch heute noch einer der Klassiker auf diesem Gebiet ist.

Foreward by Arthur WaldronPrefacePrinciples of TranslationGuide to PronunciationKey TermsList of Abbreviations PrecisIntroductionChapter 1. Initial AssessmentsChapter 2. Doing BattleChapter 3. Planning for the AttackChapter 4. PositioningChapter 5. ConfigurationChapter 6. Emptiness and SolidityChapter 7. The Struggle of ArmiesChapter 8. Nine VarietiesChapter 9. Marching the ArmyChapter 10. Terrain TypesChapter 11. Nine Types of TerrainChapter 12. Incendiary AttackChapter 13. Using SpiesAppendix. The Pseudo-Biography of Sun WuNotesBibliographyIndex

Compiled during the Warring States period of 475-221 B.C.E., The Art of War has had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese military strategy over the past two thousand years and occupies an important place in East Asian intellectual history. It is the first known attempt to formulate a rational basis for the planning and conduct of military operations, and while numerous editions of the work exist, Victor Mair's translation is the first to remain true to the original structure and essential style of the text. Mair's fidelity to the original, along with his insightful commentary and reliance on archaeologically recovered manuscripts, breaks new ground in solving The Art of War's difficult textual and contextual problems. He confronts complex questions concerning the authorship of the work, asserting that Sun Wu, a supposed strategist of the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.E.) to whom the text is traditionally attributed, never existed. Instead, Mair claims that The Art of War coalesced over a period of around seventy-five years, from the middle of the fourth century to the first quarter of the third century B.C.E.