Why The Art of War thrives in Brazil: cultural capital and field dynamics in a Bourdieusian perspective

The Art of War, attributed to Sun Tzu, is a seminal work in classical Chinese military strategy. This article examines the Portuguese-language dissemination and reception of The Art of War, examining why it thrives in Brazil. Grounded in Bourdieu’s field theory, the study decodes the conversion of the text’s cultural capital across domains through a tripartite analysis: (1) survey and mapping of three rewriting modalities (translations, adaptations, derivatives); (2) the evolution of the dynamics of field hierarchies; (3) the strategic legitimization by multiple agents in its dissemination. Findings reveal that the circulation is shaped by the dynamics between academic marginality and commercial hegemony. The text’s prominence stems from its strategic recontextualization by cultural entrepreneurs and intermediaries. The Brazilian trajectory of The Art of War reveals how peripheral fields reproduce and reshape global texts through recontextualization, turning translation into an act of strategic reinvention within unequal structures of cultural production.