"There can never be too much deception in war," so goes a familiar Chinese maxim.

"Engage the enemy by your normal force and defeat it by your extraordinary forces," exhorted Sun Zi, author of Art of War, the greatest military classic of China.

Thus deception constitutes a main topic in every ancient Chinese classic on military strategy. However, it is uncommon for a book to deal almost exclusively on deceptive schemes, as in "Secret Art of War: Thirty-Six Strategies". Written by an anonymous scholar about three hundred years ago, the book did not see publication until the 1940s. Since then, it has attracted the attention of military authorities and general readers alike.

In addition to the precise translation of the ancient work, the present book provides for each of the thirty-six strategies a lucid explanation, quotations for reference from other military classics, and the account of an ancient battle featuring the successful application of the strategy. The reader will have an opportunity to grasp the essence of ancient Chinese war craft by reading some of the epoch-making battles in ancient China.