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Philosophical Influences In The Art Of War Found In The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, Nathaniel Ethan Clark

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“Philosophical Influences in The Art of Warfound in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is an examination of Sunzi’s philosophy about leadership in The Art of War as applied to the moral character, or lack thereof, of historical Han Dynasty leaders, Liu Bei and Cao Cao. In Luo Guanzhong’s The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the two are fictionalized with oppositional personalities and corresponding philosophical bases. I explore the ways in which their actions embody or reject the philosophy found in Sunzi’s The Art of War.