myers@math.arizona.edu (Donald Myers) (11/28/89)
From: "Donald Myers" <myers@math.arizona.edu> As far as I remember it, Sun Tzu was a chinese stratege of ancient China, before Christ who wrote a treaty of the war. But you could also quote Machiaveli: he never heard of Sun Tzu, but there is a chapter in "The Prince" where he basically says the same thing, that the art of war is of primordial importance for a prince: "The Art of War is the only one a Prince must care about; for it not only rises a private citizen to the condition of a Prince but for some princes that chose to neglect it for other pleasures from rulers went down to the condition of ordinary men." -Machieveli, most probably the best reference you could ever quote rather than some exotic (and sometimes esoteric) prehistoric chinese. Machieveli gave the exemple of the Sforza: the first Sforza was a farmer who became a condottieri. He enrolled his troops to the service of the Visconti, the ruling family of Milan but overthrust the duke Visconti and self-proclaimed him as the new duke. Later, his descendents who did not like the art of war from dukes went down to ordinary peoples. It's very instructing.