Africa Center Director Dr. J. Peter Pham recently endorsed the book Sun Tzu and the Art of Modern Warfare by Mark R. McNeilly.
“For more than two millennia, The Art of War not only has been the best known of the seven classic works that constituted the Chinese military canon, but also has enjoyed unique influence on both Asian and Western strategic culture. It has inspired statesmen and rebels, merchants and lawyers, as well as generals. Of course, such an ‘art of war’ is easier to see than to grasp and even harder to practice. For as much as the passage of the centuries has hallowed the text, they have also rendered it all the more daunting for the modern reader. And thus the signal service Mark McNeilly renders once again by not only making the original text available, but also distilling the ancient wisdom into half a dozen core principles, illustrating each with case studies drawn from more recent conflicts that today’s readers, whether their interests be in politics or its continuation in warfare, will more readily absorb… Highly recommended.”