Sonshi, the largest website dedicated to Sun Zi’s (Sun Tzu’s) Art of War, recently selected Victor H. Mair’s new translation as “the #1 Art of War edition.”

In announcing its judgment, the site stated, “how rare a book that courageously stands up to centuries of established thought, proceeds to knock it down with sound logic and proof, and succeeds in convincing even the Old Guard to change their views.”

Professor Mair has just published a free, book-length companion to his translation: Soldierly Methods: Vade Mecum for an Iconoclastic Translation of Sun Zi bingfa, with a complete transcription and word-for-word glosses of the Manchu translation by H. T. Toh (1 MB PDF).

Yes, all that and Manchu too. The appendixes might well supply the longest text in romanized Manchu available online — not to mention the longest one with English translation. (Perhaps someone from Echoes of Manchu can comment.)

And I’d like to note the introduction to the transcription offers a cool word I hadn’t come across before: Mandjurist, which is German for “Manchu philologist.”

Here’s the table of contents:

• Preface
• Principles of Translation
• Guide to Pronunciation
• Key Terms
• Abbreviations
• Discussion
  • The Book and Its Title
  • Authorship
  • Historical Background
  • Dating
  • Stylistics and Statistics
  • Techniques and Technology
  • Taoistic Aspects
  • Eurasian Parallels
  • On the World Stage
  • Notes
• Appendix I: The Pseudo-Biography of Sun Wu
• Appendix II: Further Notes on Selected Key Terms
• Appendix III: Transcription of the Manchu Translation of the Sun Zi with Word-for-Word English Glosses by Hoong Teik Toh
• Appendix IV: Transcription of the Manchu Translation of the Sun Zi by Hoong Teik Toh
• Bibliography

This is issue no. 178 of Sino-Platonic Papers.