Reddit mentions of The Art of War

Okay, let's start with the most obvious-

• The Art of War- the art of war is a HUGELY overrated booklet(about 6,000 words) that is basically only used as an insightful sounding namedrop. I do suggest reading it(I'd recommend John Minford's translation) just because of how much people rely on that silly little book, but certainly not "to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art". This booklet,whose very authorship is disputed, has historically invalid military maxims and tactics strung together in simple verse, and i think Minford summed it up best saying "it’s a very peculiar and particularly unpleasant little book which is extremely disorganized, made up of a series of probably very corrupt bits of text, which is very repetitive and has extremely little to say.". Anyone who's read it and still recommends it, as one of the essential reading material nonetheless!, has either name-dropped it, doesn't read much, or mistook its obscurity for some high hidden wisdom. Either way, if he really wanted to give examples of works that would help us "to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art" one can read 1984, For Whom the Bells Toll, and If This Is a Man- not that shit.
  
  Now to the rest, which despite being good books, shouldn't, well most of them, be seen as essential and have little to do with the "lessons" he attaches to them:
  
  
• The Bible- You probably should read the Bible, but it's both so general to just say "the bible", since it's composed of many kinds of books(history,mythology,poetry,law and parables), written in many different styles across several centuries, sometimes even in several languages!. Reading it though, would not help you "to learn that it's easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself", that's just way too general to say. I mean, it could help with the lesson he attached to "the art of war" though, as it contains all the barbarities you can think of and plenty of it. And you can't "just" read it. Get a textbook explaining it, otherwise i assure you it will fly over your head. It is pretty shitty in it's moral parts, and realizing people lived by these rules once is a lesson all in itself. All and all the most important reason to read it really is just because so much of western art and literary allusions are based on it, and the aforementioned humility of understanding the destitute state in which people lived a few millennia ago.
  
  
• The System of the World and On the Origin of Species - Namedropping galore again. Great books, but only when one already understands the theories they speak of and goes back to read how the founders of them first conceived them, and how they searched, not having the privilege of the centuries of added knowledge you have, to make sense of it. It is NOT essential! Nobody needs to read either book to understand Evolution or Astronomy. In fact, they both make mistakes, which is understandable obviously, but why shouldn't you read a modern textbook introduction to evolution or astrophysics? you'll learn much more and you basically have to otherwise you won't see the mistakes in their books, and since you do, they are not fit as "basic" reading material (though Darwin do writes wonderfully!). It makes no sense.
  
  
• Gulliver's Travels - This piece of horatian satire is a really great piece of literature, and a critique of many different aspects of the society it was written in, but to say you should read it to learn "that most of the time humans are Yahoos" is again missing the point and again just tries to dropped some popular philosophical maxim.
  
  
• The Wealth of Nations - did i say appeal to popular maxims? here is another example. Other then that, the arguments raised against Newton and Darwin's books are the same, yet less so in this case, as it is still a good read on classical economics.
  
  
• The Age of Reason- again, overrated and though well written, this pamphlet Tyson suggests we read to learn on "the power of rational thought" advocates the existence of god and triumphs other irrational ideas. Really, the only reason someone would put this on an essential reading list would be to namedrop some good old american patriotism. I swear this list looks like it came from the office of someone planning to run for one.
  
  
• The Prince - once again we face a short treatise whose importance is more in literary innovation and historic in nature. It has some semi plausible ideas about power and such, but nothing more. There is also a good possibility it was written as a satire. Another namedrop...
  
  so that's why i found the list ridiculous, it simply appealed to vague moral maxims("greed is bad" "sheeple" "war is hell" etc.) while namedropping important recognizable persons and books("the art of war" "Newton" "Machiavelli" etc.) to create a facade of wisdom and understanding. It is not a good reading list, let alone a good "essential" reading list. It is a reading list that's looks like it came from a management guru or politician, not a scientist or scholar.
  
  EDIT: dumb grammar mistakes and typos. English, y u so hard?!