A review of Sun Tzu's “The Art of War”

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

– Sun Tzu's “The Art of War,” Chapter 3

When I was in business school, one of my professors mentioned a 2500-year-old book from Ancient China. As you may have guessed, the book was Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” He said that it was sometimes assigned reading for Master’s of Business Administration programs in the West, and was even more important in the East (in places like China and Japan). Not many books from 2500 years ago are considered that practical. Sun Tzu was probably a contemporary of Confucius – not to mention Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism (not to be confused with Sun Tzu). Sun Tzu probably wrote about five centuries before Jesus Christ – earlier than Socrates and Plato. His treatise was primarily focused on military strategy, but it also has applications to some business strategy, as I will show in this post.

Sun Tzu, which translates as “Master Sun”

This book is a fairly quick read, which I got through in about two weeks

But first, I should start by saying that I read this book in November 2010. As I wrote at the time, I “read an hour or two a day for about two weeks. It's actually not a very long read. With translator's notes and introduction included, the version I had was 172 pages with small pages and large text, and a lot of that was commentaries from people in Chinese history.” (Source: Status update of 20 November 2010) This book is divided into 13 chapters. Obviously, the version that I read was in English translation, since I don’t know any Ancient Chinese (or even Modern Chinese). Thus, I cannot rate whether Thomas Cleary’s translation was accurate, or whether it accurately communicates Master Sun’s ideas (“Sun Tzu” means “Master Sun”). But I can testify that the content of the translation was practical and useful, and that these ideas are still relevant today.

The edition of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” that I read in 2010

A review of “Judaism” (audiobook)

“And I will establish my covenant between me and thee [Abraham] and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.”

– The Hebrew Bible, “The First Book of Moses Called Genesis,” Chapter 17, Verse 7 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

So I recently finished listening to a three-hour audiobook called “Judaism.” It seemed like an excellent introduction to the history and philosophy of the Jewish faith. It talked about the scriptures, beliefs, and holy days and festivals of the faith.

My experience with Spanish (Part 2)

This is a follow-up to a blog post from 2014. (For the earlier post, click here.)

I freely admit that I'm not a native speaker of Spanish, but my Spanish is not bad by Gringo standards. I have tried hard to learn the language in my adulthood, and improve it along the way. I have talked in a previous blog post about my taking college Spanish classes, watching movies with Spanish subtitles, reading scriptures in Spanish, and attending Spanish-language church services. In this blog post, I will try to update what I said earlier, and give some additional comments on Spanish endeavors that I have undertaken since then.

The church building where I attended Spanish-language church services in Prescott, Arizona

A review of “Lafayette: The Lost Hero” (PBS)

“If War should break out between France and Great Britain, during the continuance of the present War between the United States and England, his [French] Majesty and the said united States, shall make it a common cause, and aid each other mutually with their good Offices, their Counsels, and their forces, according to the exigence of Conjunctures as becomes good & faithful Allies.”

“In order to fix more precisely the sense and application of the preceding article, the Contracting Parties declare, that in case of rupture between France and England, the reciprocal Guarantee declared in the said article shall have its full force and effect the moment such War shall break out … ”

– Articles 1 and 12 of the “Treaty of Alliance Between The United States and France” (6 February 1778)

Fellow Americans tend to remember the American Revolution as a time of heroes. The names of Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison are known widely in this country. And for many Americans, the Marquis de Lafayette is right up there in the pantheon with these Founding Fathers, even though he was obviously not an American himself. As you may know, he was born a Frenchman, and was a citizen of France throughout his life. He never sought to obtain American citizenship, and was highly patriotic to France. Why, then, is he remembered with such fondness by so many Americans today?

Marquis de Lafayette