What is the best translation of The Art of War?

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For most readers, the Samuel B. Griffith translation (1963) of The Art of War is the best place to start: Griffith's 1963 translation is still the one most people mean by 'the Art of War.' He was a U.S. Marine general turned scholar, so it reads as a real strategist's text, not a curiosity — clear, practical, with a famous foreword by the military historian B. H. Liddell Hart. Accurate enough for study, plain enough to just read. This is where I'd start. For most readable, consider John Minford (2002). For best for going deep, consider Thomas Cleary (1988). For most scholarly, consider Roger T. Ames (1993). For the free classic, consider Lionel Giles (1910).

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