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Title: Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare : A Translation of the Classic Chinese Work of Philosophy and Strategy (Suny Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture) by Bin Sun, Roger T. Ames, D. C. Lau ISBN: 0-7914-5496-7 Publisher: State University of New York Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on: A Welcome New Edition
Comment: So far as I have been able to tell, this volume is a re-designed version of "Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare," by Lau and Ames, originally published in 1996 by Ballantine Books, and, like too many of the "Classics of Ancient China" series, allowed to go out of print.
Besides the change in the title from Wade-Giles to Pinyin transliteration (pronounced the same way), Pinyin has been used throughout (except in citing other works), and the Chinese and English sections have been rearranged to eliminate the enormous amount of blank space in the original edition. This sacrifices convenience of layout (the Chinese text originally faced the translation, with, if necessary, only a few lines on each page) for economy. The index has likewise been revised in arrangement as well as page references. If there have been other modifications, corrections, or additions to the bibliographic references, I have missed them.
There is one major omission: sixteen pages of photographs are missing (except for one, reproduced as a cover illustration). These are useful, but not essential. This was presumably in the interest of economy. Given that the previous edition is difficult to find, SUNY is to be praised for bringing the book back into print, even if this fact is somewhat obscured, and their version is slightly truncated.
For those not familiar with it already, "Sun Bin" was long thought to be a bibliographic ghost, or even a lost forgery, a supposed long-missing counterpart to the existing "Art of War" of the elder Sun (Sun-tzu). It was one of the texts described in Han Dynasty bibliographies and histories, but not reliably reported as existing for well over a thousand years. The conclusions that it probably hadn't existed, or wasn't authentic if there was such a work, had to be abandoned when substantial fragments of it, and other texts, turned up in 1972, during the excavation of early Han Dynasty tombs.
There have been several other translations into English during the last decade, but the co-authors of this volume make a distinguished combination of an eminent senior Sinologist, with a long career working with the problems of early literary texts (Lau) and a sophisticated modern interpreter of Chinese intellectual history (Ames). As a result, the reader is assured of first-rate technical scholarship, and clearly-expressed explanations.
The emphases, not unexpectedly, are on textual and linguistic problems, and the place of the text in the development of Chinese military and political theory. Of the several other translations of the fragmentary, and in part enigmatic, text which are now available, Ralph D. Sawyer's version, as "Military Methods of The Art of War," may be the most satisfactory alternative, or, better, companion volume. It is somewhat more popular in presentation, but the most important difference is Sawyer's attempt to place the text in the military (and political) history of China, as against the history of Chinese military thought.
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Title: Yuan Dao: Tracing Dao to Its Source (Classics of Ancient China) by D. C. Lau, Roger T. Ames ISBN: 0345425685 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Sun-Tzu: The Art of Warfare : The First English Translation Incorporating the Recently Discovered Yin-Ch'Ueh-Shan Texts (Classics of Ancient China) by Sunzi, Roger T. Ames, Sun-Tzu ISBN: 034536239X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1993 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation (Classics of Ancient China) by Confucius, Henry Jr Rosemont, Roger Ames, Roger T. Ames, Henry Rosemont ISBN: 0345434072 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 31 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought by Roger T. Ames ISBN: 0791420620 Publisher: State University of New York Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1994 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Analysis of Chinese Characters by George Durand Wilder ISBN: 0486230457 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 July, 1987 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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