"In the famous Chinese treatise The Art of War, Sunzi laid down precepts which succeeding generations studied carefully, among them the famous ‘Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat’ and ‘He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.’ He also had specific advice, with lists of key factors, situations or types of actions, on the various phases of war, from making the plans to choosing the right terrain to fight. From the Qin Emperor to Mao Zedong, The Art of War has provided leaders throughout China and Asia with guidelines for how to win a war. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the architect of Vietnam’s victories against the French in the 1950s and the Americans a decade later, was an admirer, as are the Western business people who have flocked to buy The Complete Sun Tzu for Business Success: Use the Classic Rules of The Art of War to Win the Battle for Customers and Conquer the Competition or The Art of War for Women: Sun Tzu’s Ancient Strategies and Wisdom for Winning at Work. Perhaps they like his assertion that ‘All warfare is based on deception’ or enjoy his passages on the importance of the strong leader for victory, and it must help that The Art of War itself is short and consists of pithy maxims."