The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art of War, by Sun Tzu

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Title: The Art of War

Author: Sun Tzu

Translator: Lionel Giles

Release Date: May 1994 [eBook #132]
[Most recently updated December 3, 2007]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF WAR ***

Note: Please see Project Gutenberg's eBook #17405 for a version of
this eBook without the Giles commentary (that is, with only the
Sun Tzu text).

SUN TZU ON THE ART OF WAR

THE OLDEST MILITARY TREATISE IN THE WORLD

Translated from the Chinese with Introduction
and Critical Notes

BY

LIONEL GILES, M.A.

Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS.
in the British Museum

First Published in 1910

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To my brother
Captain Valentine Giles, R.G.
in the hope that
a work 2400 years old
may yet contain lessons worth consideration
by the soldier of today
this translation
is affectionately dedicated.

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Preface to the Project Gutenberg Etext
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When Lionel Giles began his translation of Sun Tzu's ART OF
WAR, the work was virtually unknown in Europe. Its introduction
to Europe began in 1782 when a French Jesuit Father living in
China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy of it, and translated it
into French. It was not a good translation because, according to
Dr. Giles, "[I]t contains a great deal that Sun Tzu did not
write, and very little indeed of what he did."
The first translation into English was published in 1905 in
Tokyo by Capt. E. F. Calthrop, R.F.A. However, this translation
is, in the words of Dr. Giles, "excessively bad." He goes
further in this criticism: "It is not merely a question of
downright blu