Book Review: A Book of Five Rings

Written by Shinmen Musashi circa 1645, "A book of Five Rings" is an interesting set of lessons on learning the warrior path. What strikes me most about the work is the systemic nature of Musashi's observations on how to best learn to be a warrior.

The main premise of the book is to teach a military commander on the tactics of war. For example, in the "Fire Book", the three methods of forestalling the enemy apply equally to the 1-on-1 duelist and the 1,000's-on-1,000's and can be equated to what I have recently learned on strategy at the USAF's Squadron Officer School. This mindset taken, of the interrelation between building of character, self-discipline, building on basics of swordsmanship/combat-arms, and the commander, is similar to what we are discussing here in the Systemic Leadership blog.

In Systemic Leadership, we do advocate that the basic training (such as DAU for young acquisition professionals) should end up producing qualified program directors and program executive officers. In a true systemic sense, like Musashi, this training is best if it builds on itself and we teach the young professionals what will be useful as seniors.

Overall, I recommend this book for its classic take on integrating multiple disciplines together into a systemic whole. Ultimately, many readings are needed to fully appreciate the subtleties of the book. A book, which by the way, is very short - my version (Translated by Vicor Harris in 1974) is only 95 pages, and over half of that are notes, background, and translation points.