Abstract:
Following the Seven Years’ War, John Clarke, a British Marine, and Joseph Amiot, a French ex-Jesuit missionary in Peking, translated two classical texts on military theory, respectively Vegetius’ Epitoma Rei Militaris and the Sunzi bingfa: the two texts that formed the model for subsequent writing on the art of war within their respective traditions. While the translators were half a world apart, their literary projects were a common response to inter-related events: in both cases, an attempt to bolster the author’s personal position, promote his profession and demonstrate the utility of both. The connections between the men offer the opportunity for comparative historical and textual analysis that throws light on the military and political developments of the late Enlightenment. The translators selected the source texts for their relevance to their audience and to the strategic dilemmas faced by Britain and France. For Clarke, these included empire, the professionalization of the army and the strategic role of the monarch. For Amiot, social stability, the monarchy and France’s prestige. Clarke’s personal goals were achieved but his thinking on the professionalization and use of the army was not to be heeded until after the American Revolution. Amiot’s work was co-opted into the narrative of political reform that led to the French Revolution. In view of these political, military and literary developments, it is no coincidence that the Epitoma and the Sunzi were brought together in France in the 1770s with the first attempts to articulate and define the term ‘strategy’. This research combines textual readings, comparative analysis and consideration of new primary materials and existing scholarship. The resulting study proposes new insights into the way political, military and literary ideas and events coalesced in the aftermath of the first global war; and the role of translation in the genre of military theory.
UCL keywords: Strategy, Seven Years' War, Vegetius, Joseph Amiot, Military Enlightenment, John Clarke, Sunzi bingfa, De re militari, Military theory and translation
Open access at UCL Discovery.
Local access dig.pdf. [Parr-Military Theory.pdf]

The Mandate of Heaven : strategy, revolution, and the first European translation of Sunzi's Art of war (1772) / Adam Parr

Includes bibliographical references and index

Translating the Sunzi -- Joseph Amiot's Sunzi -- The thirteen chapters on military art, a work composed in Chinese / by Sunzi -- Interpreting Amiot's Sunzi -- Strategy and revolution -- Joseph Amiot's letter to Henri Berlin, Beijing, September 23, 1766 -- Amiot's life

"The Mandate of Heaven examines the first European version of Sunzi's Art of War, which was translated from Chinese by Joseph Amiot, a French missionary in Beijing, and published in Paris in 1772. His work is presented in English for the first time. Amiot undertook this project following the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France with the aim of demonstrating the value of the China mission to the French government. He addressed his work to Henri Bertin, minister of state, beginning a thirty-year correspondence between the two men. Amiot framed his translation in order to promote a radical agenda using the Chinese doctrine of the "mandate of heaven." This was picked up within the sinophile and radical circle of the physiocrats, who promoted China as a model for revolution in Europe. The work also arrived just as the concept of strategy was emerging in France. Thus Amiot's Sunzi can be placed among seminal developments in European political and strategic thought on the eve of the revolutionary era"-- Provided by publisher

Text in English, with some text in Chinese. English text translated from French version of text originally in Chinese

Local access dig.pdf [Parry-Mandate.pdf]

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