Comparing English Translations of Sun Tzu's The Art of War

From an interview ( http://www.sonshi.com/gagliardi.html ) that was done with him:

"Languages have always been my hobby and, at the time, I had spent about three years studying written Japanese, so I had some grounding in the Kanji character set that is shared with Chinese.

However, I discovered that ancient Chinese is a language unto itself, written more conceptually (or poetically, as some prefer) than any modern spoken language. Fortunately, I also have a bit of a background in mathematics and physics and I immediately saw the similarities between The Art of War and classical Greek mathematics, especially Euclid (I also study ancient Greek).

With my background in using Sun Tzu's concepts successfully in business competition with years of explaining these ideas to others, I was better positioned to interpret Sun Tzu's equations than someone who was a linguist alone. I started with the assumption that Sun Tzu didn't contradict himself so, if there was a contradiction in the translation, the problem was with the translation, not the original.

I also had the advantage of working from a complete compilation of Sun Tzu various textual traditions created by the University of Taipei, so I had a more complete source document that many other English translators and a number of Chinese dictionaries on the Internet for doing research and on-line versions of other texts from the period (such as the Tao Te Ching)."

While you are may be reading this book out of curiosity, we hope it interests you in learning more about using Sun Tzu’s system to make better decision.

Also uses difficult-to-follow formatting. Concludes with an infomercial-esque sales pitch for additional products:

At this point, you have to make a decision. This is appropriate because Sun Tzu teaches the science of making better decisions. At this point, are you satisfied just being able to say you read The Art of War? Or do you want to develop real skills you will use every day?

Not like scam, but more like "hey we are all after you money, and that is about it."

Maybe it is the aggressive adverticing of their products, that makes for that either mail-order/scam/new-age/Evangelical Christian feeling I get?

I'd be much better with a gentler introduction, and then hit harder as I dwelled deeper into the material.

I have actually read a good copy of Sun Tzu already. And after having looked briefly at the sight, I decided to dwell no further into the subject.

I recommend I'Ching translated by Richard Herman, if it has been retranslated into english.

And I had the opinion, that professional linguists or bilingualists, should all come up with almost or mostly identical translations. And when their translations are published, they should easily be able to have consensus, that one translation is better than the other, which reflects the coherent structure of language.