Sunday Times Top 10 title and International Bestseller- ancient Chinese philosophy for modern life from Harvard's most popular professor.
Michael Puett is Professor of Chinese History at Harvard and has lectured widely at the world's leading universities. His course in Chinese philosophy is among the most popular at Harvard and in 2013 he was awarded a Harvard College Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching. This is his first trade book. Christine Gross-Loh has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic and the Huffington Post. She has a PhD in East Asian history from Harvard and is the author of Parenting without Borders.
I couldn't wait for this. Brilliant. This is where it's at now . .
. so fascinating
*Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2*
I can't think of anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading The Path,
from my youngest son to the future President of the USA. It's
accessible, realistic and far from being an ordinary self-help
book. It gives immediate reassurance that this chaotic life can be
mastered and it challenges you to strive for better
*Bookseller*
Very good. Based on Puett's popular class at Harvard, it's a great
introduction to Eastern philosophy, which I always chide myself for
not studying enough
*Ryan Holiday*
The Path is very interesting . . . makes you want to read
further
*Nigel Warburton*
The Path is in part a pleasing debunking of fashionable self-help
disciplines . . . I can testify that Puett is one of the nicest
people - if not the nicest person - I have ever interviewed:
attentive, generous and patient
*Guardian*
I have been talking about it to everyone. It's brilliant,
mesmerizing, profound - and deeply contrarian. It points the way to
a life of genuine fulfillment and meaning
*Amy Chua, author of 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother'*
Can you turn a Chinese theory class into a smart self-help book? US
academic Michael Puett did. Puett's book encourages us to chuck
away our stiff, encrusted western notions, and to adopt a more
fluid, less didactic approach to life. The Path is not your classic
self-help book, and not just because it dismantles the self. It
doesn't serve up an easy set of how-to activities ... you are also
advised that any changes you make will be slow, incremental, the
result of constant daily work ... To talk to Puett is to view our
western tradition through an entirely different lens
*Sunday Times*
I couldn't wait for this. Brilliant. This is where it's at now ...
so fascinating
*Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2*
A new book from a cult Harvard professor turns contemporary
thinking around happiness on its head...There can't be many cult
professors. Especially ones that lecture Chinese philosophy to
undergraduates. But Professor Michael Puett of Harvard is one of
them. Via word of mouth, his courses became full. And now he's
written a book, with co-author and journalist Christine Gross-Loh,
based on his course. The Path looks at the teachings of ancient
Chinese philosophers and explains how we can apply these largely
forgotten teachings to our everyday lives. Granted, it sounds like
a tough read. It sounds specialist and niche and intimidating. It
sounds all of those things. But it is none of those things. It's a
big ask in under 200 pages. But there's something wonderfully
simple and refreshing about the ideas. There is a simplicity to
this book: all we have is ourselves, let's try and make things
better
*The Pool*
His course has become the most popular on campus, even with those
studying other subjects, and that's because he talks about how to
have a good life, and using ancient Chinese philosophy challenges
all our modern assumptions about what it takes to flourish in
life
*Today programme*
A worthy introduction to thinkers rarely taught in British
universities
*The Times*
It's on my night stand
*Gwyneth Paltrow*
Offer[s] interesting alternatives to some of our modern ideas of
self and society ... worth the cover price
*Financial Times*
Ideas in this book ... authentically contradict modern common sense
... Noting the current fad for mindfulness, the authors point out
that Buddhism in the west "has often been distorted as a way of
looking within and embracing the self". Such navel-gazing, they and
the Chinese sages agree, may be a kind of imprisonment
*Guardian*
A very accessible and inspiring piece of work ... Anyone willing to
put the work in might find that this book really can change your
life
*The Sentinel*
This book is a revelation, a practical way through a fractured,
distracting world. I thought I knew these philosophers - and I was
wrong. Rigorous, concise, deeply informed, The Path retires our
facile shorthand about ideas "from the East" and presents a
powerful intellectual case to engage, to care, and to remember
*Evan Osnos*
This is a book that turns the notion of help - and the self, for
that matter - on its head. Puett and Gross-Loh bring seemingly
esoteric concepts down to Earth, where we can see them more
clearly. The result is a philosophy book grounded in the here and
now, and brimming with nuggets of insight. No fortune-cookie this,
The Path serves up a buffet of meaty life lessons. I found myself
reading and re-reading sections, letting the wisdom steep like a
good cup of tea
*Eric Weiner*
The Path will not only change your life - -it will change the way
you see history and the world. From its wondrously fresh take on
Confucius to its quietly profound read of just what it is the great
sages have to say to us, this book exemplifies all that can come of
the radical openness of Chinese philosophy. Read it and be
transformed
*Gish Jen, author of Tiger Writing and The Love Wife*
The Path illuminates a little-known spiritual and intellectual
landscape: the rich body of Chinese thought that, starting more
than two millennia ago, charted new approaches to living a
meaningful life. But Puett goes a lot further, creatively applying
this ancient thought to the dilemmas of modern life. The result is
a fresh recipe for harnessing our natural energies and emotions to
strengthen social connection and build islands of order amid the
chaos that sometimes surrounds us
*Robert Wright, author of The Language of God*
Puett's dynamism translates well from his classroom theater onto
the page, and his provocative, radical re-envisioning of everyday
living through Chinese philosophy opens wide the 'possibilities for
thinking afresh about ourselves and about our future.' With its ...
spirited, convincing vision, revolutionary new insights can be
gleaned from this book on how to approach life's multifarious
situations with both heart and head
*Kirkus Reviews*
If you're looking to get out of a rut, or rise above the doom and
gloom of our present global situation, Puett's channeled knowledge
from the Chinese masters will be a wake-up call. We sometimes
forget that our problems are as old as civilization, and maybe the
answers have always been hidden in plain sight.
*Publishers Weekly Staff Pick*
The Laozi actually offers a much more expansive-and
revolutionary-vision of innovation [than The Art of War. It]
questions the very idea that we should try to come up with
innovative strategies within a defined, predictable arena, whether
that is the battlefield or dinner table, the boardroom or the steel
industry. Instead, the Laozi assumes a world in constant flux and
motion. Those who aspire to innovate are better off seeing the
world through a Laozian, not Sunzian, lens
*Fortune*
A very accessible work
*i*
There's a lot in it...fascinating. [It] is challenging the
conventions of Western philosophy
*BBC World*
Thought-provoking and stimulating work. The authors carry an
admirable modesty
*RTÉ*
Puett's book is designed to make the reader think, and it fulfils
that objective. He presents complex philosophies lucidly
*The Statesman*
The Importance of Breaking Free of ... Yourself
*LinkedIn post viewed over 0.5 million times*
Welcome and unusual. Its genesis rests in the enormous teaching
success of Puett, a professor of Chinese history at Harvard. His
freshman survey course on Chinese philosophy now ranks as the most
popular humanities class on the campus, requiring the august venue
of Sanders Theatre to accommodate its 700-plus regulars. The
result? A remarkable combination of self-help guide and
iconoclastic take on ancient Chinese wisdom
*Chronicle of Higher Education*
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