Abstract: Five shock initiation criterions for condensed explosives were introduced from literatures. The critical energy criterion Pⁿτ is more suitable topredict shock initiation of explosives undergoing one -dimensional short duration impact. James criterion and its modifications incorporate several variables, such as energy fluence, specific Kinetic energy, power flux, and J_max-to interpret input shock energy at the microscale level. The series of James criterion could describe dynamic process of shock initiation and have broad prospects in the study of shock initiation threshold of explosives and assessment of the reliability of shock initiation.