Lessons in the Art of War: Martial Strategies for the Successful Fighter

"A scholarly yet approachable tome, Lessons in the Art of War ought to be on every serious martial artist's bookshelf. Using the principles of Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz, Sprague demonstrates that the underlying philosophies of Eastern and Western combat as reflected by the martial arts truly aren't all that different."—Lawrence Kane, author of The Little Black Book of Violence

War is a human activity, not one that is limited by geographic location. And the principles of war are the same, regardless of place or number of participants. An army of ten thousand engaged in battle uses the same basic strategies that two people in single combat will utilize.

In Lessons in the Art of War, author Martina Sprague explores the writings of both Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese military strategist, and Carl von Clausewitz, the European military genius. Despite the differences in time period, geographic location and culture, both Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz had achieved extraordinary understanding of human nature and how that relates to combat. Sprague takes the similarities and differences in their respective strategies and distills them down to their essence for martial artists to understand and incorporate into their personal practices.