The Art of War

Funny having two Arts of War on the shelf and them being so different. Sun Tzu's is short, almost aphoristic; you can read it in an afternoon. Machiavelli's is a treatise, with dialogue and technical detail. Even so, the two often reach the same conclusion by completely different methods.

“Win without fighting.” The best battle is the one you don't have to fight, because you've already positioned everything beforehand.

The book's biggest problem is that everyone reads into it whatever they want hahaha. I've seen people use Sun Tzu to justify anything, from sales strategy to family feuds. The translation also matters a lot: I have three copies from different publishers, and all three differ from one another on some ideas.

Overall it's simple to understand, it teaches, and it lays the groundwork for Machiavelli and Greene later on.