Sun Tzu's 5th-century BCE military treatise — 13 chapters on strategy, deception, and the relationship between victory and avoiding battle — the most widely read military strategy text in history and the most applied ancient text in contemporary business.
Creates the indirect strategy doctrine — The Art of War's core argument (that the supreme achievement is to defeat the enemy without fighting; that victory belongs to the side that can adapt and deceive; that knowing yourself and your enemy is the foundation of all strategy) established the Eastern indirect approach to strategy that complements and contrasts with Western Clausewitzian direct attrition.
No recorded contemporaries.
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