The Chinese Strategic Tradition: A Research Program (I)

June 2nd, 2015 by T. Greer

The good news is that most of these works have been translated into English. Indeed, we live in a golden age of translation and archaeological discovery. Our understanding of pre-imperial China has increased more in the last twenty five years than in the hundred years that preceded them. In the last two decades alone we have seen new translations of the Mozi, Dao De Jing, Analects, Seven Military Classics, Huainanzi, Lushi Spring and Autumn, Sun Bin Art of War, Shizi, Guanzi, Mencius, Xunzi, Yi Zhou Shu and the so called “lost classics” of the Yellow Emperor and the Guodian tomb texts. When combined with the existing translations of the Stratagems of the Warring States, the Book of Lord Shang, Gui Gu Zi, Han Feizi and fragments or excerpts from the works of thinkers like Shen Buhai and Jia Yi (not to mention earlier translations of many of the works mentioned above), there is a considerable corpus of works that touch upon strategic questions available to anyone who speaks English.