Of the 4,000-odd books on mi l i tary strategy produced over the course of Chinese history, the Art of War is almost unanimously acknowledged as the most outstanding. It was written by Sun Wu (Sun Tzu), a well-known general some 2,500 years ago. The fact that a man and the book he wrote still exert a profound influence over 2,500 years since his death surely makes one want to find out exactly what a kind of man Sun Tzu was and what exactly he wrote about.