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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
informative
fast-paced
Was not very impressed with this at all. It was the successor to "Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius" as my iPod/subway book, but not as enjoyable. First of all, nearly half of the edition I had was editorial notes interspersed with the text. I guess the text itself isn't really long enough to justify a whole book on its own. And second, I feel like it didn't really offer me any new insights. It reminded me somewhat of "The Wealth of Nations" in having some interesting wisdom mixed in with long boring parts. But Sun Tzu is considerably less organized than Adam Smith, and what's more, I feel like the main interesting insights of this book have been so sublimated into American cultural awareness that they didn't feel fresh to me: win the battle by fighting on your own terms, know your enemy as well as you know yourself, etc. I feel like I had a much better experience of learning about military strategic and tactical thinking by reading, for instance, Shogun, and probably the same would be true of Lawrence of Arabia (though I haven't read that). I much prefer reading a narrative of Toranaga/Tokugawa's military coup to having its key insights boiled down (and all the motivation boiled away).
Next iPod/subway book: Epictetus.
Next iPod/subway book: Epictetus.
slow-paced
Insightful and uniquely significant for history, very slow read
a quick read, has some wisdom but most chapters are not applicable to modern and day-to-day life.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our readiness to receive him.”
My favorite part was that the general should know when to ignore the sovereign and how he should treat his men. His attitude on war was practical. He saw that a long war would wear everyone, and he advised against it.
informative
medium-paced