Michael Magnusson

Art of War: the Thirteen Chapters Michael Magnusson

Part I: The Thirteen Chapters by Sun Tzu Translation by Dr. Lionel Giles. - Part II: The Thirteen Chapters With Commentary and Notes by Dr. Lionel Giles. - Although the text by Sun Tzu was written 2500 years ago it was practically unknown in Europe until 1782 when the French Jesuit Father Joseph Amiot translated it to French. This translation in the words of Giles, "contains a great deal that Sun Tzu did not write, and very little indeed of what he did". The first translation to English was published in 1905 by E. F. Calthrop and the opinion of Giles was not more forgiving this time: "It is not merely a question of downright blunders, from which none can hope to be wholly exempt. Omissions were frequent; hard passages were willfully distorted or slurred over. Such offenses are less pardonable. They would not be tolerated in any edition of a Latin or Greek classic, and a similar standard of honesty ought to be insisted upon in translations from Chinese." - - This book contains two parts and can be enjoyed with or without the legendary commentary and notes by Giles.