Book Critique

Elliot Prusa

SS Semester Project

Mr. Walker

5/2/10

The Art of War Book Critique

For my semester project, I choose to read The Art of War. The Art of War was written by Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC. It contains a total of 13 chapters; each chapter is devoted to one aspect of war. It is believed by many to be the defining book of military tactics and strategies of its day. Here are my thoughts on the book.

As I first picked up the Art of war and began to read it, the book felt very foreign, and I had a hard time relating it to life today. I found it very confusing and I became very frustrated with the book. I even thought about picking a new book to do for my project. After a few weeks I picked the book up again. I slowed down as I read and thought more in depth about Tzu’s concepts on warfare and his military tactics. They began to make sense. As I read the book reminded me of a chess game. How Tzu would stress the importance of making quick decisions, and assessing situations. After awhile, I became hooked on this book.

After I began to slow down the pace at which I read. I began to understand and enjoy the book. I found the book so enjoying because Tzu talked about his personal experiences in warfare. He was not speaking theoretically, like so many authors do today. One of the reasons I found this book so interesting was that many of the tactics and strategies that Tzu explained from over 2000 years ago. Are still in use today, this really made me realize how intelligent and crafty Tzu really was, which is what made this book so successful and enjoyable to many people.

Even though Tzu writes about many interesting and knowledgeable things in The Art of War, I still found this book very confusing. The wording was often weird and I would sometime have troubles following along. The translators of this book could have done a much better job.

The Art of War is very good, anyone who is looking for a good book on military tactics and strategies, this is the book for you. The book itself teaches many great lessons to its reader that are applicable to many more areas then just warfare. Although the book could be phrased a lot better and at times the book can be very confusing. But all in all I found the Art of War to be an excellent book as long as you take your time and read carefully. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in warfare.