Sun Tzu’s The Art of War

A Hypertext Version

See also, Sun Tzu a day on your website.

Well, I said I reserved the right to stick something unrelated to computing on this site, and here is the first example of such.

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has fascinated lots of people in the English-speaking world since it was translated, myself included. Part of the fascination is the pithy style of the prose.

Unfortunately for the casual reader this pithiness is somewhat undermined by the commentary. The impact of verse 18 of the first chapter in particular is somewhat softened by the commentary telling you how pithy it is!. So I removed the commentary from a public domain copy, and then to emphasise the pithiness further I put each verse on a separate page.

If you want to study, rather than merely read, The Art of War you can buy a copy of this translation or the later the Griffith translation or download the public domain copy used to create this from Project Gutenberg.

Public Domain Declaration

With most of the stuff I do I give a pretty liberal license; I look for awknowledgement in non-commercial copies and I forbid commercial use without asking me first. However since this little project is almost entirely a matter of copying the public domain Giles translation of an ancient (and hence well into the public domain) text it seems rather poor show to put even such a liberal license on it. Hence I am placing this derived hypertext version, in its entirety, into the public domain.

Note that I am using the Giles translation in good faith on the understanding that it is in public domain. If there are any copyright issues with it that I am not aware of then anyone making a copy of my version here will unavoidably inherit them.

The Art of War

Laying Plans

1, 2, 3, 4, 5&6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Waging War

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13&14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Attack by Stratagem

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Tactical Dispositions

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Energy

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23

Weak Points and Strong

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34

Manœuvering

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37

Variation in Tactics

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

The Army on the March

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45

Terrain

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

The Nine Situations

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68

The Attack by Fire

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

The Use of Spies

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27