Thirteen short chapters on strategy and tactics — planning, logistics, terrain, maneuver, espionage, and the management of armies — that counsel winning with the least possible cost and treating prolonged war as a danger to the state itself. Long the lead text of China's Seven Military Classics, it remains one of the most influential works on strategy ever written, studied today well beyond the military.
Author: Attributed to Sun Tzu (Sunzi, "Master Sun") · Original publisher: Ancient Chinese treatise (c. 5th century BCE); first annotated English translation: Luzac & Co. (London), 1910
