Sun Tzu's The Art of War is, of course, a classic. At least six English translations can be found in most large bookstores on bookshelves next to another much cited but little read military favorite, Carl von Clausewitz's On War (Knopf, New York, 1993). Translator Roger Ames describes The Art of War as "the world's foremost classic on military strategy."

During the Vietnam war, it was popular for Army officers to be seen carrying copies of the works of Sun Tzu and Mao Tse-tung. It is unlikely that many who carried the books read them, and few who read them understood them.

Sun Tzu was a Chinese military leader and philosopher. Little is certain regarding his life, including when he lived. The biography in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Historical Records (Oxford University Press, New York, 1994), dating from the early 1st century B.C., describes Sun Tzu as a contemporary of...