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The Road to Character Kindle Edition
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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST
With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives.
Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade.
Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth.
“Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”
Praise for The Road to Character
“A hyper-readable, lucid, often richly detailed human story.”—The New York Times Book Review
“This profound and eloquent book is written with moral urgency and philosophical elegance.”—Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon
“A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”—The Guardian
“Original and eye-opening . . . Brooks is a normative version of Malcolm Gladwell, culling from a wide array of scientists and thinkers to weave an idea bigger than the sum of its parts.”—USA Today
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House
- Publication dateApril 14, 2015
- File size1081 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“David Brooks—the New York Times columnist and PBS commentator whose measured calm gives punditry a good name—offers the building blocks of a meaningful life.”—Washingtonian
“This profound and eloquent book is written with moral urgency and philosophical elegance.”—Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon
“[Brooks] emerges as a countercultural leader. . . . The literary achievement of The Road to Character is inseparable from the virtues of its author. As the reader, you not only want to know about Frances Perkins or Saint Augustine. You also want to know what Brooks makes of Frances Perkins or Saint Augustine. The voice of the book is calm, fair and humane. The highlight of the material is the quality of the author’s moral and spiritual judgments.”—Michael Gerson, The Washington Post
“A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”—The Guardian (U.K.)
“This learned and engaging book brims with pleasures.”—Newsday
“Original and eye-opening . . . At his best, Brooks is a normative version of Malcolm Gladwell, culling from a wide array of scientists and thinkers to weave an idea bigger than the sum of its parts.”—USA Today
“David Brooks breaks the columnist’s fourth wall. . . . There is something affecting in the diligence with which Brooks seeks a cure for his self-diagnosed shallowness by plumbing the depths of others. . . . Brooks’s instinct that there is wisdom to be found in literature that cannot be found in the pages of the latest social science journals is well-advised, and the possibility that his book may bring the likes of Eliot or Samuel Johnson—another literary figure about whom he writes with engaging sympathy—to a wider general readership is a heartening thought.”—Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker
“If you want to be reassured that you are special, you will hate this book. But if you like thoughtful polemics, it is worth logging off Facebook to read it.”—The Economist
“Brooks uses the powerful stories of people such as Augustine, George Eliot and Dwight Eisenhower to inspire.”—The Times (U.K.)
“Elegant and lucid . . . a pitch-perfect clarion call, issued not with preachy hubris but from a deep place of humility, for awakening to the greatest rewards of living . . . The Road to Character is an essential read in its entirety—Anne Lamott with a harder edge of moral philosophy, Seneca with a softer edge of spiritual sensitivity, E. F. Schumacher for perplexed moderns.”—Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Shift
On Sunday evenings my local NPR station rebroadcasts old radio programs. A few years ago I was driving home and heard a program called Command Performance, which was a variety show that went out to the troops during World War II. The episode I happened to hear was broadcast the day after V--J Day, on August 15, 1945.
The episode featured some of the era’s biggest celebrities: Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, and many others. But the most striking feature of the show was its tone of self--effacement and humility. The Allies had just completed one of the noblest military victories in human history. And yet there was no chest beating. Nobody was erecting triumphal arches.
“Well, it looks like this is it,” the host, Bing Crosby, opened. “What can you say at a time like this? You can’t throw your skimmer in the air. That’s for run--of--the mill holidays. I guess all anybody can do is thank God it’s over.” The mezzo--soprano Risë Stevens came on and sang a solemn version of “Ave Maria,” and then Crosby came back on to summarize the mood: “Today, though, our deep--down feeling is one of humility.”
That sentiment was repeated throughout the broadcast. The actor Burgess Meredith read a passage written by Ernie Pyle, the war correspondent. Pyle had been killed just a few months before, but he had written an article anticipating what victory would mean: “We won this war because our men are brave and because of many other things—-because of Russia, England, and China and the passage of time and the gift of nature’s materials. We did not win it because destiny created us better than all other people. I hope that in victory we are more grateful than proud.”
The show mirrored the reaction of the nation at large. There were rapturous celebrations, certainly. Sailors in San Francisco commandeered cable cars and looted liquor stores. The streets of New York’s garment district were five inches deep in confetti.1 But the mood was divided. Joy gave way to solemnity and self--doubt.
This was in part because the war had been such an epochal event, and had produced such rivers of blood, that individuals felt small in comparison. There was also the manner in which the war in the -Pacific had ended—-with the atomic bomb. People around the world had just seen the savagery human beings are capable of. Now here was a weapon that could make that savagery apocalyptic. “The knowledge of victory was as charged with sorrow and doubt as with joy and gratitude,” James Agee wrote in an editorial that week for Time magazine.
But the modest tone of Command Performance wasn’t just a matter of mood or style. The people on that broadcast had been part of one of the most historic victories ever known. But they didn’t go around telling themselves how great they were. They didn’t print up bumper stickers commemorating their own awesomeness. Their first instinct was to remind themselves they were not morally superior to anyone else. Their collective impulse was to warn themselves against pride and self--glorification. They intuitively resisted the natural human tendency toward excessive self--love.
I arrived home before the program was over and listened to that radio show in my driveway for a time. Then I went inside and turned on a football game. A quarterback threw a short pass to a wide receiver, who was tackled almost immediately for a two--yard gain. The defensive player did what all professional athletes do these days in moments of personal accomplishment. He did a self--puffing victory dance, as the camera lingered.
It occurred to me that I had just watched more self--celebration after a two--yard gain than I had heard after the United States won World War II.
This little contrast set off a chain of thoughts in my mind. It occurred to me that this shift might symbolize a shift in culture, a shift from a culture of self--effacement that says “Nobody’s better than me, but I’m no better than anyone else” to a culture of self--promotion that says “Recognize my accomplishments, I’m pretty special.” That contrast, while nothing much in itself, was like a doorway into the different ways it is possible to live in this world.
Little Me
In the years following that Command Performance episode, I went back and studied that time and the people who were prominent then. The research reminded me first of all that none of us should ever wish to go back to the culture of the mid--twentieth century. It was a more racist, sexist, and anti--Semitic culture. Most of us would not have had the opportunities we enjoy if we had lived back then. It was also a more boring culture, with bland food and homogeneous living arrangements. It was an emotionally cold culture. Fathers, in particular, frequently were unable to express their love for their own children. Husbands were unable to see the depth in their own wives. In so many ways, life is better now than it was then.
But it did occur to me that there was perhaps a strain of humility that was more common then than now, that there was a moral ecology, stretching back centuries but less prominent now, encouraging people to be more skeptical of their desires, more aware of their own weaknesses, more intent on combatting the flaws in their own natures and turning weakness into strength. People in this tradition, I thought, are less likely to feel that every thought, feeling, and achievement should be immediately shared with the world at large.
The popular culture seemed more reticent in the era of Command Performance. There were no message T--shirts back then, no exclamation points on the typewriter keyboards, no sympathy ribbons for various diseases, no vanity license plates, no bumper stickers with personal or moral declarations. People didn’t brag about their college affiliations or their vacation spots with little stickers on the rear windows of their cars. There was stronger social sanction against (as they would have put it) blowing your own trumpet, getting above yourself, being too big for your britches.
The social code was embodied in the self--effacing style of actors like Gregory Peck or Gary Cooper, or the character Joe Friday on Dragnet. When Franklin Roosevelt’s aide Harry Hopkins lost a son in World War II, the military brass wanted to put his other sons out of harm’s way. Hopkins rejected this idea, writing, with the understatement more common in that era, that his other sons shouldn’t be given safe assignments just because their brother “had some bad luck in the Pacific.”2
Of the twenty--three men and women who served in Dwight Eisenhower’s cabinets, only one, the secretary of agriculture, published a memoir afterward, and it was so discreet as to be soporific. By the time the Reagan administration rolled around, twelve of his thirty cabinet members published memoirs, almost all of them self--advertising.3
When the elder George Bush, who was raised in that era, was running for president, he, having inculcated the values of his childhood, resisted speaking about himself. If a speechwriter put the word “I” in one of his speeches, he’d instinctively cross it out. The staff would beg him: You’re running for president. You’ve got to talk about yourself. Eventually they’d cow him into doing so. But the next day he’d get a call from his mother. “George, you’re talking about yourself again,” she’d say. And Bush would revert to form. No more I’s in the speeches. No more self--promotion.
The Big Me
Over the next few years I collected data to suggest that we have seen a broad shift from a culture of humility to the culture of what you might call the Big Me, from a culture that encouraged people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that encouraged people to see themselves as the center of the universe.
It wasn’t hard to find such data. For example, in 1950, the Gallup Organization asked high school seniors if they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes. The same question was asked in 2005, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent.
Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to them. Statements such as “I like to be the center of attention . . . I show off if I get the chance because I am extraordinary . . . Somebody should write a -biography about me.” The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety--three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.4 The largest gains have been in the number of people who agree with the statements “I am an extraordinary person” and “I like to look at my body.”
Along with this apparent rise in self--esteem, there has been a tremendous increase in the desire for fame. Fame used to rank low as a life’s ambition for most people. In a 1976 survey that asked people to list their life goals, fame ranked fifteenth out of sixteen. By 2007, 51 percent of young people reported that being famous was one of their top personal goals.5 In one study, middle school girls were asked who they would most like to have dinner with. Jennifer Lopez came in first, Jesus Christ came in second, and Paris Hilton third. The girls were then asked which of the following jobs they would like to have. Nearly twice as many said they’d rather be a celebrity’s personal assistant—-for example, Justin Bieber’s—-than president of Harvard. (Though, to be fair, I’m pretty sure the president of Harvard would also rather be Justin Bieber’s personal assistant.)
As I looked around the popular culture I kept finding the same messages everywhere: You are special. Trust yourself. Be true to yourself. Movies from Pixar and Disney are constantly telling children how wonderful they are. Commencement speeches are larded with the same clichés: Follow your passion. Don’t accept limits. Chart your own course. You have a responsibility to do great things because you are so great. This is the gospel of self--trust.
As Ellen DeGeneres put it in a 2009 commencement address, “My advice to you is to be true to yourself and everything will be fine.” Celebrity chef Mario Batali advised graduates to follow “your own truth, expressed consistently by you.” Anna Quindlen urged another audience to have the courage to “honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and, yes, your soul by listening to its clean clear voice instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.”
In her mega--selling book Eat, Pray, Love (I am the only man ever to finish this book), Elizabeth Gilbert wrote that God manifests himself through “my own voice from within my own self. . . . God dwells within you as you yourself, exactly the way you are.”6
I began looking at the way we raise our children and found signs of this moral shift. For example, the early Girl Scout handbooks preached an ethic of self--sacrifice and self--effacement. The chief obstacle to happiness, the handbook exhorted, comes from the overeager desire to have people think about you.
By 1980, as James Davison Hunter has pointed out, the tone was very different. You Make the Difference: The Handbook for Cadette and -Senior Girl Scouts was telling girls to pay more attention to themselves: “How can you get more in touch with you? What are you feeling? . . . Every option available to you through Senior Scouting can, in some way, help you to a better understanding of yourself. . . . Put yourself in the ‘center stage’ of your thoughts to gain perspective on your own ways of feeling, thinking and acting.”7
The shift can even be seen in the words that flow from the pulpit. Joel Osteen, one of the most popular megachurch leaders today, writes from Houston, Texas. “God didn’t create you to be average,” Osteen says in his book Become a Better You. “You were made to excel. You were made to leave a mark on this generation. . . . Start [believing] ‘I’ve been chosen, set apart, destined to live in victory.’ ”8
The Humble Path
As years went by and work on this book continued, my thoughts returned to that episode of Command Performance. I was haunted by the quality of humility I heard in those voices.
There was something aesthetically beautiful about the self--effacement the people on that program displayed. The self--effacing person is soothing and gracious, while the self--promoting person is fragile and jarring. Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space—-self--concerned, competitive, and distinction--hungry. Humility is infused with lovely emotions like admiration, companionship, and gratitude. “Thankfulness,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, said, “is a soil in which pride does not easily grow.”9
There is something intellectually impressive about that sort of humility, too. We have, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman writes, an “almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”10 Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong.
This is the way humility leads to wisdom. Montaigne once wrote, “We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom.” That’s because wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation.
The people we think are wise have, to some degree, overcome the biases and overconfident tendencies that are infused in our nature. In its most complete meaning, intellectual humility is accurate self--awareness from a distance. It is moving over the course of one’s life from the adolescent’s close--up view of yourself, in which you fill the whole canvas, to a landscape view in which you see, from a wider perspective, your strengths and weaknesses, your connections and dependencies, and the role you play in a larger story.
Finally, there is something morally impressive about humility. Every epoch has its own preferred methods of self--cultivation, its own ways to build character and depth. The people on that Command Performance broadcast were guarding themselves against some of their least attractive tendencies, to be prideful, self--congratulatory, hubristic.
Today, many of us see our life through the metaphor of a -journey—a journey through the external world and up the ladder of -success. When we think about making a difference or leading a life with purpose, we often think of achieving something external—-performing some service that will have an impact on the world, creating a successful company, or doing something for the community.
Truly humble people also use that journey metaphor to describe their own lives. But they also use, alongside that, a different metaphor, which has more to do with the internal life. This is the metaphor of self--confrontation. They are more likely to assume that we are all deeply divided selves, both splendidly endowed and deeply flawed—-that we each have certain talents but also certain weaknesses. And if we habitually fall for those temptations and do not struggle against the weaknesses in ourselves, then we will gradually spoil some core piece of ourselves. We will not be as good, internally, as we want to be. We will fail in some profound way.
For people of this sort, the external drama up the ladder of success is important, but the inner struggle against one’s own weaknesses is the central drama of life. As the popular minister Harry Emerson Fosdick put it in his 1943 book On Being a Real Person, “The beginning of worth--while living is thus the confrontation with ourselves.”11
Truly humble people are engaged in a great effort to magnify what is best in themselves and defeat what is worst, to become strong in the weak places. They start with an acute awareness of the bugs in their own nature. Our basic problem is that we are self--centered, a plight beautifully captured in the famous commencement address David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005:
Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self--centeredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard--wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.
This self--centeredness leads in several unfortunate directions. It leads to selfishness, the desire to use other people as means to get things for yourself. It also leads to pride, the desire to see yourself as superior to everybody else. It leads to a capacity to ignore and rationalize your own imperfections and inflate your virtues. As we go through life, most of us are constantly comparing and constantly finding ourselves slightly better than other people—-more virtuous, with better judgment, with better taste. We’re constantly seeking recognition, and painfully sensitive to any snub or insult to the status we believe we have earned for ourselves.
Some perversity in our nature leads us to put lower loves above higher ones. We all love and desire a multitude of things: friendship, family, popularity, country, money, and so on. And we all have a sense that some loves are higher or more important than other loves. I suspect we all rank those loves in pretty much the same way. We all know that the love you feel for your children or parents should be higher than the love you have for money. We all know the love you have for the truth should be higher than the love you have for popularity. Even in this age of relativism and pluralism, the moral hierarchy of the heart is one thing we generally share, at least most of the time.
But we often put our loves out of order. If someone tells you something in confidence and then you blab it as good gossip at a dinner party, you are putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship. If you talk more at a meeting than you listen, you may be putting your ardor to outshine above learning and companionship. We do this all the time.
People who are humble about their own nature are moral realists. Moral realists are aware that we are all built from “crooked timber”—-from Immanuel Kant’s famous line, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” People in this “crooked--timber” school of humanity have an acute awareness of their own flaws and believe that character is built in the struggle against their own weaknesses. As Thomas Merton wrote, “Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers.”12
You can see evidence of the inner struggle in such people’s journals. They are exultant on days when they win some small victory over selfishness and hard--heartedness. They are despondent on days when they let themselves down, when they avoid some charitable task because they were lazy or tired, or fail to attend to a person who wanted to be heard. They are more likely see their life as a moral adventure story. As the British writer Henry Fairlie put it, “If we acknowledge that our inclination to sin is part of our natures, and that we will never wholly eradicate it, there is at least something for us to do in our lives that will not in the end seem just futile and absurd.”
I have a friend who spends a few moments in bed at night reviewing the mistakes of his day. His central sin, from which many of his other sins branch out, is a certain hardness of heart. He’s a busy guy with many people making demands on his time. Sometimes he is not fully present for people who are asking his advice or revealing some vulnerability. Sometimes he is more interested in making a good -impression than in listening to other people in depth. Maybe he spent more time at a meeting thinking about how he might seem impressive than about what others were actually saying. Maybe he flattered people too unctuously.
Each night, he catalogs the errors. He tallies his recurring core sins and the other mistakes that might have branched off from them. Then he develops strategies for how he might do better tomorrow. Tomorrow he’ll try to look differently at people, pause more before people. He’ll put care above prestige, the higher thing above the lower thing. We all have a moral responsibility to be more moral every day, and he will struggle to inch ahead each day in this most important sphere.
People who live this way believe that character is not innate or automatic. You have to build it with effort and artistry. You can’t be the good person you want to be unless you wage this campaign. You won’t even achieve enduring external success unless you build a solid moral core. If you don’t have some inner integrity, eventually your Watergate, your scandal, your betrayal, will happen. Adam I ultimately depends upon Adam II.
Now, I have used the word “struggle” and “fight” in the previous passages. But it’s a mistake to think that the moral struggle against internal weakness is a struggle the way a war is a struggle or the way a boxing match is a struggle—-filled with clash of arms and violence and aggression. Moral realists sometimes do hard things, like standing firm against evil and imposing intense self--discipline on their desires. But character is built not only through austerity and hardship. It is also built sweetly through love and pleasure. When you have deep friendships with good people, you copy and then absorb some of their best traits. When you love a person deeply, you want to serve them and earn their regard. When you experience great art, you widen your repertoire of emotions. Through devotion to some cause, you elevate your desires and organize your energies.
Moreover, the struggle against the weaknesses in yourself is never a solitary struggle. No person can achieve self--mastery on his or her own. Individual will, reason, compassion, and character are not strong enough to consistently defeat selfishness, pride, greed, and self--deception. Everybody needs redemptive assistance from -outside—from family, friends, ancestors, rules, traditions, institutions, exemplars, and, for believers, God. We all need people to tell us when we are wrong, to advise us on how to do right, and to encourage, support, arouse, cooperate, and inspire us along the way.
There’s something democratic about life viewed in this way. It doesn’t matter if you work on Wall Street or at a charity distributing medicine to the poor. It doesn’t matter if you are at the top of the income scale or at the bottom. There are heroes and schmucks in all worlds. The most important thing is whether you are willing to engage in moral struggle against yourself. The most important thing is whether you are willing to engage this struggle well—-joyfully and compassionately. Fairlie writes, “At least if we recognize that we sin, know that we are individually at war, we may go to war as warriors do, with something of valor and zest and even mirth.”13 Adam I achieves success by winning victories over others. But Adam II builds character by winning victories over the weaknesses in himself.
The U--Curve
The people in this book led diverse lives. Each one of them exemplifies one of the activities that lead to character. But there is one pattern that recurs: They had to go down to go up. They had to descend into the valley of humility to climb to the heights of character.
The road to character often involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. When they were in a crucible moment, they suddenly had a greater ability to see their own nature. The everyday self--deceptions and illusions of self--mastery were shattered. They had to humble themselves in self--awareness if they had any hope of rising up transformed. Alice had to be small to enter Wonderland. Or, as Kierkegaard put it, “Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.”
But then the beauty began. In the valley of humility they learned to quiet the self. Only by quieting the self could they see the world clearly. Only by quieting the self could they understand other people and accept what they are offering.
When they had quieted themselves, they had opened up space for grace to flood in. They found themselves helped by people they did not expect would help them. They found themselves understood and cared for by others in ways they did not imagine beforehand. They found themselves loved in ways they did not deserve. They didn’t have to flail about, because hands were holding them up.
Before long, people who have entered the valley of humility feel themselves back in the uplands of joy and commitment. They’ve thrown themselves into work, made new friends, and cultivated new loves. They realize, with a shock, that they’ve traveled a long way since the first days of their crucible. They turn around and see how much ground they have left behind. Such people don’t come out healed; they come out different. They find a vocation or calling. They commit themselves to some long obedience and dedicate themselves to some desperate lark that gives life purpose.
Each phase of this experience has left a residue on such a person’s soul. The experience has reshaped their inner core and given it great coherence, solidity, and weight. People with character may be loud or quiet, but they do tend to have a certain level of self--respect. Self--respect is not the same as self--confidence or self--esteem. Self--respect is not based on IQ or any of the mental or physical gifts that help get you into a competitive college. It is not comparative. It is not earned by being better than other people at something. It is earned by being better than you used to be, by being dependable in times of testing, straight in times of temptation. It emerges in one who is morally dependable. Self--respect is produced by inner triumphs, not external ones. It can only be earned by a person who has endured some internal temptation, who has confronted their own weaknesses and who knows, “Well, if worse comes to worst, I can endure that. I can overcome that.”
The sort of process I’ve just described can happen in big ways. In every life there are huge crucible moments, altering ordeals, that either make you or break you. But this process can also happen in daily, gradual ways. Every day it’s possible to recognize small flaws, to reach out to others, to try to correct errors. Character is built both through drama and through the everyday.
What was on display in Command Performance was more than just an aesthetic or a style. The more I looked into that period, the more I realized I was looking into a different moral country. I began to see a different view of human nature, a different attitude about what is important in life, a different formula for how to live a life of character and depth. I don’t know how many people in those days hewed to this different moral ecology, but some people did, and I found that I admired them immensely.
My general belief is that we’ve accidentally left this moral tradition behind. Over the last several decades, we’ve lost this language, this way of organizing life. We’re not bad. But we are morally inarticulate. We’re not more selfish or venal than people in other times, but we’ve lost the understanding of how character is built. The “crooked timber” moral tradition—-based on the awareness of sin and the confrontation with sin—-was an inheritance passed down from generation to generation. It gave people a clearer sense of how to cultivate the eulogy virtues, how to develop the Adam II side of their nature. Without it, there is a certain superficiality to modern culture, especially in the moral sphere.
The central fallacy of modern life is the belief that accomplishments of the Adam I realm can produce deep satisfaction. That’s false. Adam I’s desires are infinite and always leap out ahead of whatever has just been achieved. Only Adam II can experience deep satisfaction. Adam I aims for happiness, but Adam II knows that happiness is insufficient. The ultimate joys are moral joys. In the pages ahead, I will try to offer some real--life examples of how this sort of life was lived. We can’t and shouldn’t want to return to the past. But we can rediscover this moral tradition, relearn this vocabulary of character, and incorporate it into our own lives.
You can’t build Adam II out of a recipe book. There is no seven--point program. But we can immerse ourselves in the lives of outstanding people and try to understand the wisdom of the way they lived. I’m hoping you’ll be able to pick out a few lessons that are important to you in the pages ahead, even if they are not the same ones that seem important to me. I’m hoping you and I will both emerge from the next nine chapters slightly different and slightly better.
Product details
- ASIN : B00LYXV61Y
- Publisher : Random House; 1st edition (April 14, 2015)
- Publication date : April 14, 2015
- Language : English
- File size : 1081 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 299 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0141980362
- Best Sellers Rank: #45,352 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #25 in Ethics & Morality
- #136 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- #155 in Personal Transformation
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About the author
David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on “PBS NewsHour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He teaches at Yale University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the bestselling author of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement; Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. He has three children and lives in Maryland.
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Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking. They appreciate the character development and examples of people with deep characters throughout. Readers describe the stories as wonderful, interesting, and enjoyable. The book provides a guide for living a morally sound life, praising holiness above happiness and positive ethical acts such as treating others with humility. It's well-written and worthy of David Brooks' work. Customers consider it a gift of love and praise its gift value.
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Customers find the book insightful and engaging. They appreciate the author's understanding of human nature, Western history, and American history. The subject matter is considered important and thought-provoking. Readers find the book well-crafted with real-life stories.
"...He wants to love intimately, to sacrifice self in the service of others, to live in obedience to some transcendent truth, and to have a cohesive..." Read more
"...There’s joy in that feeling of acceptance, the knowledge that though you don’t deserve their love, others do love you; they have admitted you into..." Read more
"...In this thoughtful, penetrating book, New York Times op-ed columnist and author David Brooks walks us through the evolution of our culture away from..." Read more
"...Yet his genius at understanding Human Nature, Western History, American History, psycholanalytic issues, Biblical morality and personal morality is..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's character insights. They find it provides good examples of people with deep characters throughout. The book profiles unsung heroes and provides a mini-biography for each chapter. Readers enjoy the author's character development and appreciate the sound biographical choices. They also mention that the prose perfectly animates the character sketches and the author's compelling style as an essayist is displayed.
"...A. Philip Randolph, a great civil rights leader, showed his character through a devotion to education, his incorruptibility, and his unflinching..." Read more
"...He is deeply interested in issues of character and meaning and the direction that humanity is going in, which is increasingly an I/ Me direction...." Read more
"...is a well-researched book as seen in his detailed presentation of different people throughout history...." Read more
"...His book takes on not only an important discussion of character but also the challenging topic of sin, redemption and the inner life...." Read more
Customers enjoy the stories in the book. They find the stories of remarkable people who felt a call to greatness interesting and enjoyable. The author does an excellent job of bringing history alive through his storytelling. Readers love the first and last chapters and frequently go back and re-read sections.
"...Rather he shares stories of moral exemplars (ranging from Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall to Frances Perkins and Dorothy Day) to inspire us to..." Read more
"...Yet his genius at understanding Human Nature, Western History, American History, psycholanalytic issues, Biblical morality and personal morality is..." Read more
"...Original anecdotes about amazing individuals, from Dorothy Day, Frances Perkins, and A. Philip Randolph to General George Marshall, Augustine, and..." Read more
"...Through a great introduction and then a series of essays of great people, Mr. Brooks leads us through his journey toward developing his best..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's moral guidance. They find it helpful for living a morally sound life, with Biblical and personal morality emphasized. The book offers practical examples of holiness and positive ethical acts like treating others well. Readers say the book tackles moral issues that most other social commentaries avoid, deepening their faith.
"...Humility is central to the journey. Humility leads to wisdom, a moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and finding a way to manage ignorance,..." Read more
"...gave women, and other groups, the language to articulate and cultivate self-assertion, strength and identity; it also began an acceptance of the “..." Read more
"...Western History, American History, psycholanalytic issues, Biblical morality and personal morality is profoundly clear...." Read more
"...persons that I felt didn't have any character due to their lack of repentance or behavior...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's pacing. They find it well-written and insightful, with well-chosen characters. The author provides valuable insights into the decline of character in modern society.
"...My self-confidence has truly been hard-won. I feel that Brooks’ motives were wonderful, and I deeply admire him for addressing the topic in such a..." Read more
"...open person and not religious but still found the concepts to be adaptable and useful without changing my point of view...." Read more
"...I loved Brooks's craftsmanship. He writes acceptingly, tolerantly and yet tenaciously--searching for virtues to make us better than "happy."..." Read more
"...Too disjointed and even contradictory to be of much policy use -- even for an individual to follow comprehensively....." Read more
Customers appreciate the book as a gift. They find it gracious, powerful, and punchy. The book is a heartfelt tribute to some of history's greatest people, with a gentle sense of humor and kindness. Readers praise the author's gift for words and consider it a wonderful gift especially for graduates.
"...Nobody was erecting triumphal arches. He noted how this tone of thankfulness and humility, with the absence of bravado, was in such contrast to the..." Read more
"...service, of doing what is good for the community, and paying homage to the greater good...." Read more
"...I think this would be an excellent gift to any new college grad or individual who feels mired in an unfulfilling routine and is seeking a second or..." Read more
"...money-oriented, ambitious life and pushes for a more balanced, caring, empathetic one...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's depth. They find the content rich and fascinating, with a deeper exploration of culture.
"...In this thoughtful, penetrating book, New York Times op-ed columnist and author David Brooks walks us through the evolution of our culture away from..." Read more
"...But, this book revealed a much deeper and more serious side. The book touches on biography, philosophy, and even spirituality...." Read more
"...This is a book that provides us with heavy, deep digging into how our culture has altered the very semantics of worth...." Read more
"...This book is very deep and dense, I had to reread several sections and paragraphs over and over to understand exactly what he was trying to say...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's readability. Some find it readable and well-written, while others feel it is repetitive and unfocused at times. The writing style can be confusing for some readers.
"...Brooks has written a gem of a book, one that raises the bar for future discussions of “character”. It takes time to absorb and savor...." Read more
"...of numbered points that are thoughtful and scholarly, but also somewhat ephemeral and hard to apply...." Read more
"...He noted how this tone of thankfulness and humility, with the absence of bravado, was in such contrast to the self aggrandizing “celebrations” we..." Read more
"...The book lags when he becomes too buried in interpreting biographical data to fit the values he promotes...." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2015Writing an adequate review for best-selling author David Brook’s “The Road to Character” has been challenging. I typically work with five pages of detailed notes when reviewing a book but found myself with twenty-one pages for this review.
Brooks has written a gem of a book, one that raises the bar for future discussions of “character”. It takes time to absorb and savor. Brooks says publicly that he wrote this book to save his own soul.
“The Road to Character” is about the cultural shift from the “little me” to the “BIG ME,” from a culture that encourages people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that encourages people to see themselves as the center of the universe. This cultural shift encourages us to think about having a great career but leaves nothing for us to develop an inner life and character. For Brooks, we have lost our way to “being good” and “doing good.”
Brooks frames the discussion by contrasting “resume virtues” - those skills that one brings to the job market that contribute to external success – with “eulogy virtues” – those that are at the core of our being like courage, honesty, loyalty, and the quality of our relationships that contribute to real joy. These are embodied in two competing parts, Adam I and Adam II, of our nature that are a constant source of contradiction and tension.
Adam I is the external Adam. He wants to build, create, produce and discover things. He is characterized by actively seeking recognition, satisfying his desires, being impervious to the moral stakes involved. He has little regard for humility, sympathy, and honest self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character. He wants to have high status, win victories, and conquer the world.
Adam II is the internal Adam. He wants to embody certain moral qualities. He wants to love intimately, to sacrifice self in the service of others, to live in obedience to some transcendent truth, and to have a cohesive inner soul that honors creation in one’s own possibilities. Adam II is charity, love, and redemption.
Adam I is at work in today’s “BIG ME” culture. “Big Me” messages are everywhere; you are special; trust yourself; and be true to yourself. This ‘Gospel of Self’ begins with childhood when awards and rewards are given for just being, not doing. “We are all wonderful, follow your passion, don’t accept limits and chart your own course.”
This has led to an ethos based on a “ravenous hunger in a small space of self-concern, competition, and a hunger for distinction at any cost,” an ethos where envy has replaced admiration. This self-centeredness leads to several unfortunate directions: selfishness, the use of other people as a means to an end, seeing oneself as superior to everyone else, and living with a capacity to ignore and rationalize one’s imperfections and inflate one’s virtues.
The “BIG ME” culture distorts the purpose of our journey and the meaning of life. “Parts of themselves go unexplored and unstructured. They have a vague anxiety that their life has not achieved its ultimate meaning and significance. They live with unconscious boredom, not really loving, and unattached to the moral purpose that gives life it’s worth. They lack the internal criteria to make unshakable commitments. They never develop inner constancy, the integrity that can withstand popular disapproval or a serious blow. They foolishly judge others by their abilities and not by their worth. This external life will eventually fall to pieces.”
In this increasingly “BIG ME” culture, Brooks became haunted by the voices of the past and the quality of humility and character they exhibited. People in the past guarded themselves against some of their least attractive tendencies to be prideful, self-congratulatory, and hubristic. “You would not even notice these people. They were reserved. They did not need to prove anything in the world.” They embodied humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft discipline. “They radiated a sort of moral joy. They answered softly when challenged harshly. They were silent when unfairly abused, dignified when others tried to humiliate them, and restrained when others tried to provoke them…
But they got things done. They were not thinking about what impressive work they were doing. They were not thinking about themselves at all. They just seemed delighted by the flawed people around them. They made you feel funnier and smarter when you spoke with them. They moved through all social classes with ease. They did not boast. They did not lead lives of conflict-free tranquility but struggled towards maturity. These people built a strong inner character, people who achieved a certain depth. They surrendered to the struggle to deepen their soul.”
Brooks highlights the lives of prominent and influential people - Francis Perkins, Dwight Eisenhower, Dorothy Day, George C. Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, George Eliot, St. Augustine, Samuel Johnson, Michel de Montaigne – to articulate the diverse roads taken by a diverse set of people, white and black, male and female, religious and secular, literary and non-literary. Not one of them was even close to perfect. They were acutely aware of their own weaknesses and they waged an internal struggle against their sins to emerge with some measure of self-respect..
“The Road to Character” is a “road less traveled.” It involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. To go up, one first has to go down (The “U Curve”); one must descend into the valley of humility to climb to the heights of character. Only then will one have the ability to see their own nature, their everyday self-deceptions, and shatter all Illusions of self-mastery.
Humility is central to the journey. Humility leads to wisdom, a moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and finding a way to manage ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation. It offers freedom…freedom from the need to prove your superiority. Alice had to be small to enter Wonderland. “Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.”
The paradox for Adam I is that he cannot achieve enduring external success unless he builds a solid moral core as sought by Adam II. Without inner integrity, your Watergate, your scandal, your betrayal, will eventually happen. Adam I versus Adam II, Adam I ultimately depends on Adam II.
Brooks wrote this book to learn who has traveled this road to character, and what it looks like. He found you cannot be the good person you want to be unless you wage this campaign against self. I highly recommend this book as one of the most profound books published this year.
End note: Brook’s sections on love and suffering are excellent.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2016This is very introspective book, one that the author says he wrote “to save his own soul”. He first discusses what he refers to as our “resume virtues” and our “eulogy virtues”. The resume virtues are the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. He describes the eulogy virtues as the ones that are talked about at your funeral, the deeper virtues that exist at the core of your being- whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed. The book seeks to identify and hopefully attain these latter virtues on one’s way to achieving character. He uses another analogy in speaking to these virtues, describing the first as typical of “Adam I”, while the others are labeled as being sought by “Adam II”. I see this distinction as one between the search for recognition from others (Adam I) and the realization that the important recognition comes from within and reflects a moral adherence to some transcendent truth, sacrifice in the service of others, an inner identity that honors the wonders of creations and one’s own possibilities, and the ability to experience intimate love (Adam II). The author feels that to nurture your Adam I career, it makes sense to cultivate your strengths. To nurture your Adam II moral core, it is necessary to confront your weaknesses.
The author seemed inspired by listening to a public radio rebroadcast of a show that immediately aired after WWII. It was hosted by well known celebrities who set a tone of self-effacement and humility. The Allies had just completed one of the noblest military victories in human history. And yet there was no chest beating. Nobody was erecting triumphal arches. He noted how this tone of thankfulness and humility, with the absence of bravado, was in such contrast to the self aggrandizing “celebrations” we see regularly at sports events. He wonders at what has produced such change, and whether we have lost the sense of character that was present so many years ago.
The author then examines present attitudes, and the contrast with those of the past. He does not suggest a return to the “good old days”, or even characterize such times as such, but just seeks out the changes in, and causes of, the current moral climate. His research suggests that our country has seen a broad shift from a culture of humility to the culture of what he calls the “Big Me”, from a culture that encouraged people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that now encourages people to see themselves as the center of the universe. To support this idea of the “Big Me”, the author notes surveys of the attitudes of young people over the last almost 50 years. In 1966 80 percent of incoming college freshmen said they were strongly motivated to develop a meaningful philosophy of life. Today that figure is less than half. In 1966 42 percent said becoming rich was an important life goal, in 1990 the number was 74 percent. In a 1976 survey that asked people to list their life goals, fame ranked fifteenth out of sixteen. By 2007, 51 percent of young people reported that being famous was one of their top personal goals. And this self centeredness has been accompanied by a certain indulgence from society as a whole, an unwillingness to be critical, but instead focus on supporting self esteem, perhaps at the loss of character. As an example, the author notes that in 1966, only about 19 percent of high school students graduated with an A or A– average. By 2013, 53 percent of students graduated with that average, according to UCLA surveys of incoming college freshmen.
These changing attitudes highlight the stark contrast from the culture of humility mentioned above. The author also refers to this as the “crooked timber” school of humanity. People who ascribe to it have an acute awareness of their own flaws and a belief that character is built in the struggle against their own weaknesses. They must wage this campaign through effort and artistry, through the self discipline to adhere to external standards. But character is not built through self discipline alone, but also constructed sweetly through love and pleasure. When you have deep friendships with good people, you copy and then absorb some of their best traits. When you love a person deeply, you want to serve them and earn their regard. When you experience great art, you widen your repertoire of emotions. This journey to character is not a solitary experience. Individual will, reason, compassion, and character are not strong enough to consistently defeat selfishness, pride, greed, and self-deception. Everybody needs redemptive assistance from outside—from family, friends, ancestors, rules, traditions, institutions, exemplars, and, for believers, God. The author also feels, as do many others, that one must endure some suffering, some loss of control, a “falling”, in order to then climb to the heights of character. Such event need not be a sudden epiphany, it can also happen in a daily, gradual way. At some point one must find his or her “calling” or vocation, a devotion to something larger than himself or herself.
But how did this change in attitude come about? The author traces it back to philosophical differences in the 18th century, contrasting moral realism with moral romanticism. While moral realists placed emphasis on inner weakness, moral romantics placed emphasis on our inner goodness. The realists believed in cultivation, civilization, and artifice; the romanticists believed in nature, the individual, and sincerity. The author observed that realism reigned supreme in America during the first part of the twentieth century, but then began to wane. One would assume that this cultural change occurred in the 60's and 70's- a time of general dissatisfaction among many of our youth. But Mr. Brooks traces it instead to the prior “Greatest Generation”. These were the people who had endured 16 years of deprivation during the Great Depression and WWII, and were ready to let loose and enjoy life. Consumerism was rampant as people sought to escape the shackles of self-restraint and all those gloomy subjects like sin and depravity. Self help books abounded and it was argued that the primary psychological problem was that people didn’t love themselves enough. The focus shifted from the flawed view of human nature to an emphasis on pride and self esteem. Some philosophers called this “the culture of authenticity,” a mindset based on the romantic idea that each of us has a Golden Figure in the core of our self, an innately good True Self, which can be trusted, consulted, and gotten in touch with. Moral authority is no longer found in some external objective good, but rather in each person’s unique original self. In this ethos, sin is not found in your individual self; it is found in the external structures of society—in racism, inequality, and oppression. To improve yourself, you have to be taught to love yourself, to be true to yourself, not to doubt yourself and struggle against yourself.
Although the author acknowledges that this new sense of self-esteem gave women, and other groups, the language to articulate and cultivate self-assertion, strength and identity; it also began an acceptance of the “Big Me” sense of morality. This has been exacerbated by the omnipresence of social media which has made communication faster and busier, has diminished periods of silence and reflection, and encourages what the author calls a “broadcasting personality”. The social media maven spends his or her time creating a self-caricature, a much happier and more photogenic version of real life. People subtly start comparing themselves to other people’s highlight reels, and of course they feel inferior. People seeks false “friends”on Facebook or other social media, and seem to be constantly “selling” themselves to others, either socially or in the workplace. It’s a culture in which people are defined by their external abilities and achievements, in which a cult of busyness develops as everybody frantically tells each other how over committed they are. At least to this reader there seems a certain irony in the fact that this “Big Me” morality, focusing more inward, is caught in an endless and relentless attempt to find approval from others.
So the author finds that the ego driven “Adam I” has overshadowed the humble “Adam II”. He then notes that to restore the balance, to rediscover Adam II, to cultivate the eulogy virtues, it is necessary to revive and follow what we accidentally left behind: the counter-tradition of moral realism, or what he has called the “crooked-timber” school. We must build a moral ecology based on the ideas of this school, to follow its answers to the most important questions: Toward what should I orient my life? Who am I and what is my nature? How do I mold my nature to make it gradually better day by day? What virtues are the most important to cultivate and what weaknesses should I fear the most? How can I raise my children with a true sense of who they are and a practical set of ideas about how to travel the long road to character.
He suggests a number of guideposts for this journey. We must recognize that we our lives are not just the pursuit of pleasure, but of purpose, righteousness and virtue. Life is essentially a moral drama, not a hedonistic one. We must realize that we are flawed creatures, but still splendidly endowed. We are both weak and strong, bound and free, blind and far seeing and have the capacity to struggle within ourselves, potentially sacrificing worldly success for the sake of an inner victory. In this struggle, humility is our greatest virtue. It is the ability to accurately assess our nature and place in the universe; to be aware of our own weakness, to know that we are not the center of the universe but serve something higher. Pride is the central vice that blinds us from our divided nature, that misleads us into thinking that we are greater than we are. It makes coldheartedness more possible and love less so. We must know that once the necessities of survival are satisfied, the struggle against sin and for virtue should be life’s central drama. And we must realize that the most essential parts of life are matters of individual responsibility and moral choice: whether to be brave or cowardly, honest or deceitful, compassionate or callous, faithful or disloyal.
Character is built in the course of this inner struggle by developing dispositions, desires, and habits that are slowly engraved against our own weakness. If one makes disciplined, caring choices, such action slowly engraves certain tendencies in the mind, tendencies that will lead to the desire to continue to do the right thing and make the right choices. The things that lead us astray on this journey are short term—lust, fear, vanity, gluttony. The things we call character endure over the long term—courage, honesty, humility. And this is not a journey that we can successfully travel alone. Everyone needs redemptive assistance from outside- from God, family, friends, ancestors, rules, traditions, institutions, and exemplars. We need some external guidance that can be trusted. We must quiet our own self, muting the sound of our ego so that we can see the world clearly and realize that we are an accepted member of this mystical universe, that, in religious terms, we have received grace. We must cultivate modesty in order to gain wisdom. To be wise we must know that we do not, nor can not understand all of the mysteries we encounter. We must seek out a calling or a vocation that requires us to seek out something greater than ourselves. We must realize that our struggle against weakness and sin may not make us rich or famous, but will render us more mature, joyful and content. And perhaps most importantly, we must know that this is not a struggle that we can win, but one that we must be engaged in.
The author might best capsulize the importance of the road to character by his reference to joy:
“There’s joy in a life filled with interdependence with others, in a life filled with gratitude, reverence, and admiration. There’s joy in freely chosen obedience to people, ideas, and commitments greater than oneself. There’s joy in that feeling of acceptance, the knowledge that though you don’t deserve their love, others do love you; they have admitted you into their lives. There’s an aesthetic joy we feel in morally good action, which makes all other joys seem paltry and easy to forsake.” Although I think this summary captures the basic message of the book, it by no means covers all its content. Most of the length of the book is devoted to the biographical sketches of historical figures, some very familiar and some less well known, who exhibited great character in their lives. The author uses them as examples of the different paths to character, and the experiences that prompted these individuals to ascribe to something higher than themselves. Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall found service to their country a life’s calling, and that the honor and discipline of the military offered the best framework in which such service could be fulfilled with character. Frances Perkins was a social activist in the early decades of the 20th century, but her sense of service was galvanized by the horrible tragedy of the Triangle fire in New York. Dorothy Day was so struck by the miracle of the birth of her child that she turned wholeheartedly to work in the Catholic church, immersing herself in service to the disadvantaged. Samuel Johnson, a man plagued by many physical maladies, found his salvation and his calling in his writing. He would not abide any dishonesty and sought to produce accurate and intellectually honest work. A. Philip Randolph, a great civil rights leader, showed his character through a devotion to education, his incorruptibility, and his unflinching sense of dignity. Mary Anne Evans, the 19th century English writer who went by the pen name George Eliot, found her sense of self and her path to character through the total and unconditional love of her husband. These and other of the author’s examples were flawed individuals, but exhibited great character in battling their flaws. They took different “roads to character”- some secular, some religious, some more personal- clearly demonstrating the different paths that can be successful. All found something bigger than themselves to devote themselves to, and through which they gained their own measure of grace.
I think Mr. Brooks has produced a thoughtful and thought provoking work of great relevance to today’s society. It is well written, although at times the biographical pieces are not as pointed as I might have felt necessary. However, I did enjoy them and found the stories to be some of the useful “exemplars” that the author feels are necessary. I also thought they were instructive because of the failings of these individuals who did, in most settings, display great character. This is a book that is a fairly easy and enjoyable read, and well worth the effort.
Top reviews from other countries
- RuthReviewed in Canada on September 25, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute must read
I have read all of David Brooks's writing, and I think he is an incredible writer. I can't recommend him enough. His writing is always well-reasoned and thought-provoking.
- MirelaReviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Precious book
This is one of the books I will keep and read again and again. I heard Andrew Huberman talking about it and decided to buy it and I’m glad I did! There are lots of lessons in it, lots of reminders to help us navigate the superficial world we live in.
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Albert SchibelleReviewed in Germany on June 20, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Alles super. Danke
Alles super. Danke
- Rahul SinghReviewed in India on July 25, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars A really important book - true to its title
If you enjoy mini-biographical accounts from history, that are highly captivatingly written, and laden with thoughtful analysis and presentation of all aspects of supposedly great people's personality, both good and bad, then don't miss this one. I absolutely loved it. Unless you're actively resisting it, it will work under your skin, as it says on the cover. I've gifted this book to several people so far and have only received enormous praises for the book and gratitude. I've now read several parts twice, which is something extremely rare for me.
- JohnReviewed in Australia on July 6, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars No problem
No problem