1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars (Lost Colonies Trilogy #2) To see what your friends thought of this book, To ask other readers questions about Be the first to ask a question about Dreadnought Lists with This Book This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list » Well written story that touches on many of the fears we already see in society today Dang it--another wait now! 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 next » new topicDiscuss This Book There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »The Mystery of Sun Tzu For generations, scholars have been trying to figure out who Sun Tzu was–if he existed at all. Legend has it that he was a Chinese military leader in an era known as the Spring and Autumn Period. This was a time of great turmoil in China, as many vassal states vied for power and control of the country’s unpopulated territories. Under these circumstances, Sun Tzu’s skills as a warrior were much in demand.
As the story goes, the king of one of the feuding vassal states challenged Sun Tzu to prove his military expertise by turning a harem of royal courtesans into an organized, well-trained fighting force. At first, the courtesans failed to perform their duties; in response, Sun Tzu beheaded two of the king’s favorites in front of everyone. After that, the courtesan armies followed orders perfectly, and the king was so impressed that he put Sun Tzu in charge of his whole military. The Art of War Scholars do not know how The Art of War came to be—and whether or not “Sun Tzu,” if he existed, had anything to do with its creation. What they do know is that copies of the book, typically written on sets of sewn-together bamboo slats, ended up in the hands of politicians, military leaders and scholars across China. From there, translated copies of “Sun Tzu’s” work found their way to Korea and Japan. (The oldest Japanese version dates from the 8th century A.D.) For more than 1,000 years, rulers and scholars across Asia consulted The Art of War as they plotted their military maneuvers and imperial conquests.
Japanese samurai, for example, studied it closely. However, it did not reach the Western world until the end of the 18th century, when a Jesuit missionary translated the book into French. (Historians say that the French emperor Napoleon was the first Western leader to follow its teachings.) It was finally translated into English in 1905. Premises of The Art of War The Art of War presents the basic principles of warfare and gives military leaders advice on when and how to fight. Its 13 chapters offer specific battle strategies–for example, one tells commanders how to move armies through inhospitable terrain, while another explains how to use and respond to different types of weapons–but they also give more general advice about conflicts and their resolution. Rules like “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight;” “He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces;” “He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks;”
“Victory usually goes to the army who has better trained officers and men;” and “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril” can be applied to particular battle situations as well as to other kinds of disagreements and challenges. The Art of War Today Ever since The Art of War was published, military leaders have been following its advice. In the twentieth century, the Communist leader Mao Zedong said that the lessons he learned from The Art of War helped him defeat Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist forces during the Chinese Civil War. Other recent devotees of Sun Tzu’s work include Viet Minh commanders Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh and American Gulf War generals Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell. Meanwhile, executives and lawyers use the teachings of The Art of War to get the upper hand in negotiations and to win trials. Business-school professors assign the book to their students and sports coaches use it to win games. It has even been the subject of a self-help dating guide.
Plainly, this 2,500-year-old book still resonates with a 21st-century audience.Your book The Longboard Travel Guide is just out. It’s the first dedicated guidebook to cover the subject, so the longboard community should be pretty stoked. Yeah, I hope so. Longer boards are obviously harder to travel with, but riding them opens up so many interesting breaks around the planet, all sorts of thrilling points and peelers. The book includes some interesting off-the-beaten-track destinations like Gabon, Western Sahara, Canada and Angola. Why were you keen to include countries like those? It’s a fact of life that lineups around the world are becoming more crowded, so I think it’s important to open peoples’ eyes to new surf zones where they can be assured of high quality waves and minimal crowds. Only the most adventurous surfers make it to places that are a challenge to get to, therefore they remain uncrowded. Many of these places already have a small number of low-key tourism facilities available, such as eco-lodges, and they benefit tremendously when there’s an increase in adventure tourism.
If you accept that the journey is part of the adventure, then I think many of the countries in the book will stoke your fires. More and more surf travel companies seem happy to cater for longboarders these days. That’s got to be good news for loggers.Surfing embraces such a wide range of abilities and approaches that any savvy surf travel company will cater for every level and every board type. But I think there’s still a gap in the market for specialist surf travel operators to provide exciting quivers of boards to use on location, so that the client doesn’t have to travel with a massive coffin bag of boards. Wouldn’t it be good to arrive at your destination and be able to borrow a small quiver for the duration of the trip (say a specific noserider, a performance longboard and a fish)? Obviously the premium might be higher, but what a great way to free-up the stress of travelling with boards, and enjoy the chance to sample new designs in new waves. Surf travel operators could easily collaborate with local shapers to achieve this.
Do you prefer searching remote coasts by road or by boat? By road, if it’s possible. For me, one of the biggest rewards of surf travel is meeting people, experiencing the landscape and learning about the local culture. Getting through airports with a 9’0″ is a mission. How do you do it?Lately, I’ve noticed that Gatwick and a couple of the Heathrow terminals have introduced a 2.5 metre (8’2”) limit for oversized baggage. This is because oversized baggage is placed in trays which go down chutes (for automated sorting) before being loaded onto the relevant plane. If the attendant working at the oversized baggage check-in refuses to take your longboard, it’s at the discretion of the duty manager to have a member of staff take the board by hand…and they might refuse to take it altogether. So, the options are either to travel with a board no longer than 8’2” at suspect airports/terminals, or choose airports/terminals with a track record of accepting full longboards (9’0” plus).
I know from experience that Heathrow Terminal 3 (the home of Virgin, who are great for longboards) is at ground level and it doesn’t have a size limitation for surfboards as they get transported to the loading area without using chutes. Also, smaller international airports like Bristol (where you can connect to bigger hubs such as Amsterdam) currently have a good track record with 9’0” plus boards. It’s always wise to talk to the airline before you book and gather as much information as possible from fellow travellers. When you’re planning a long-haul trip, do you choose somewhere consistent and book flights in advance, or wait for a good chart and go at the drop of a hat? Well, our SurfExplore team doesn’t have the resources to go jetting off at the drop of a hat, so we hone in on an area and choose a month which is likely to give us good swell and good light for shooting. For example, July and August are the best months for surf in West Africa but it tends to rain heavily, so the early season (May and June) is a better bet if you’re shooting.
Similarly, areas in the South China Sea that work during the northeast monsoon – Southern China, Malaysia and Vietnam – tend to have a pervasive gloom after Christmas which is awful to photograph, so it’s often best to go early in the season, say November. If you want to publish material or produce films, good planning certainly makes a difference. If you’re only freesurfing, of course, it’s just a matter of choosing the peak swell season. What are your own personal all-time surf discovery highlights? I’d say exploring Algeria in 2009. After three months of research and planning, photographer John Callahan and our SurfExplore team documented the northeast Mediterranean coast of the country, culminating in a few sessions at the outstanding left point of Ain Barber on a solid mistral swell. We were really on a roll at that time as our travel tactics had become almost military in planning and execution. The local crew in Annaba now ride this spot when it breaks (a handful of times per year) and our trip has become part of their surfing folklore!