Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Its Rules for Winning without Conflict

Sun Tzu saw that success in competition means building winning positions. For Sun Tzu, competition means a comparison of positions. A "battle" is any point of comparison where people decide whose position to support and whose to oppose. Creating conflicts is the most costly way to win these comparisons. Sun Tzu's system teaches us how to systematically advance our positions in the most effective way possible.

Sun Tzu's book is one of the most valuable works in human history. It is also one of the most difficult to understand. Much of Sun Tzu's writing is based on concepts in traditional Chinese science and philosophy with which modern readers are unfamiliar. Simply reading an English translation of Sun Tzu gives you very little idea of his methods. There are a number of serious barriers that stand in the way of our understanding the text. Much of what it teaches is diametrically opposed to what we think we "know" about competition.

To get you started, we give you an idea what the book covers in this brief summary of its chapters.  We then explain the work's underlying cultural context and roots in Chinese science, especially its methods of diagramming relationships.