Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) wrote the original text of The Art of War shortly before 510 BC. During most of the past two thousand years, the common people in China were forbidden to read Sun Tzu's text. However, the text was preserved by China's nobility for over 2,500 years. Unfortunately, it was preserved in a variety of forms. A "complete" Chinese language version of the text wasn't available until the 1970s.

This part of the book explains the basic concepts used in expanding or advancing a strategic position. The concepts in these chapters are also briefly explained on our page on opportunity exploration.

In thirteen chapters, Sun Tzu wrote a remarkable concise work that defines a sophisticated science in a deliberative manner. Though the book itself is written in a highly condensed form, where each stanza plays a key role in the development of its ideas, we can summarize its content in three sentences. For more detail on each, click on articles below.

The first two chapters and the final one (the work is written in a circle) concentrate on positional

strategy

The Art of War played a large role in reshaping ancient China. The introduction of the text led from peace to war and eventually to the unification of China and the creation of history's most stable empire.

Strategy as a science began 2,500 years ago with the writing of The Art of War. Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) wrote the original text of The Art of War shortly before 510 BC. "Sun Tzu" means simply "Master Sun" in Chinese. His surname was Sun, but his first named was Wu (not to be confused with the state Wu of the time, a different Chinese character).