Two Great Chinese Military Classics in One Volume
The first time ever, this amazing military treatise is now available in English, French and German, and together with original text in classical and modern Chinese. Like its predecessor, Sun Zi: The Art of War by Sun Wu, Sun Bin’s book is also an outstanding piece of ancient Chinese military writing. However, it was lost for more than a millennium, which gave rise to a long standing controversy as to whether Sun Wu and Sun Bin were one and the same person.
In April 1972, a large number of bamboo strips were unearthed in an archeological find from a Western Han (206 BC-AD 25) tomb at Yinqueshan (Silver Sparrow Mountain) in Linyi County, Shandong Province in China. Among the strips were Sun Yi: The Art of War and Sun Bin: The Art of War. The simultaneous discovery of the two works from the same tomb provided conclusive evidence that both Suns existed in history, and that each had written a significant corpus on military affairs. A millennium long dispute was thus settled.
A descendant of Sun Wu, Sun Bin summed up the military experiences prior to and during the mid Warring States Period (475 BC – 221 BC) on the basic of inheriting and developing Sun Wu’s military thinking. He has thus provided important new material for study by Sun Zi specialists and scholars the world over.