The Art of War

Written around the 6th century BCE, The Art of War is one of the oldest books on military strategy - and arguably still the best. Sun Tzu's teachings on thinking on your feet and catching an opponent off guard have outlasted the battlefields they were written for, finding readers in Napoleon, General Douglas MacArthur and Fidel Castro. "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt," he wrote - advice as suited to outmanoeuvring a rival today as it was to commanding an army centuries ago.