Bookworm: Concise and well written book reviews so you can decide what to read next.
"The Art Of War" by Sun Tzu
Review by Jemma Hooper, 19th August 2009 . Tags: business, China, non-fiction, war
Having finally read the military bible that's increasingly quoted as a business bible, it's difficult to fault the honorable Tzu, if indeed he existed. In fact, as he's a contemporary of Confucious I coudn't help wonder if it was Confucious himself moonlighting his darker musings.
The flaws with Sun Tzu are its stating the bleeding obviousness and tautology. Apparently you should avoid attacking well fortified positions for instance. Then again, the WWI generals seemed to miss that bit. They cleary never read Tzu's views on facile ground.
Tautologically, you should never fight a battle unless you're sure you're going to win it before you start. Well, who can be sure even with good advice. I bet Napoleon thought he'd win Waterloo.
Best of all though, next time I'm on a business course and the tutor starts quoting Sun Tzu, I'll have a good idea whether the tutor is bluffing or not.
Link to this post: http://www.cogitas.net/bookworm/search.php?p=12
