Every one of us, as an Ancient Chinese saying reads, goes to sleep with a tiger lying
next to us. No one knows whether on awaking, it will want to lick us or tear us into pieces.

This metaphor reminds us of how every one of us relates with ones' own limitations.
It's just by trying to constantly better ourselves that we can render our tiger a friend,
cause nobody can avoid one's worst and most dangerous companion; that is oneself.
The use of stratagems is an ancient art, not only because it is the bases of secular
traditions of wisdom, but mostly because it belongs to all living beings.
Just by observing animals and plants, one can witness survival, defense or attack
strategies
in action. Man has simply elaborated all that which nature has demonstrated since
the beginning of times. The intelligence and creativity used to arrive to the desired
goals follow such wisdom. This wisdom has always guided- or at least should guide
human beings. However, this wisdom needs to be further cultivated; abilities need
to be practiced further, knowledge should be broadened.

In this book, Giorgio Nardone describes and analysis these abilities, by presenting
the three fundamental traditions that make use of stratagems as essential instruments
in achieving the desired aims; the Greek Sagacity, the Chinese art of War and the
Rhetoric of persuasion.
Efforts were directed in gathering the basic criteria with the scope of highlighting the
structure, in a way that every single stratagem is not presented as a mere simple
recipe to copy, but as a principle on which specific interventions can be constructed;
specific interventions that can allow us to overcome obstacles and help us tangle-free
difficulties, using oriental elegance and why not, by taking things with a certain pinch of salt.