THE DAO OF THE MILITARY: Liu An's Art of War, translated by Andrew Seth Meyer. Columbia University Press, 2012, 157 pp., $19.50 (paperback)

There are two ancient Chinese texts titled "The Art of War." Liu An's, the one under review, newly translated by historian Andrew Meyer, is the less famous.

The more famous is purportedly (but not actually) by Master Sun Tzu, and dates to the third century B.C. It is a best-seller to this day, read more by corporate warriors than by warriors of the battlefield.

It emerged from the disorders of China's Warring States Period (403-221 B.C.) and owes its modern appeal to its unabashed materialism. The real Sun Tzu, an older contemporary of Confucius (551-479 B.C.), was a gentleman-warrior, in keeping with his relatively settled times when warfare was religion by another name — "conducted," Meyer explains, "by small armies of chariot-mounted aristocrats ... constrained by myriad ceremonial protocols and taboos."