The Second Mountain by David Brooks, Hardcover, 9780812993264 | Buy online at The Nile
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The Second Mountain

The Joy of Giving Yourself Away

Author: David Brooks  

Hardcover

A thought-provoking exploration of the four major commitments in life that fundamentally shape our identities--from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character.

Subtitle in pre-publication: how people move from the prison of self to the joy of commitment

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Summary

A thought-provoking exploration of the four major commitments in life that fundamentally shape our identities--from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character.

Subtitle in pre-publication: how people move from the prison of self to the joy of commitment

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Description

Most of us, over the course of our lives, will make four big commitments- to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Joy comes when we fuse them into one coherent whole, with each of these commitments fortifying and strengthening the others. In The Committed Life, David Brooks looks at people--from Dostoyevsky to Holocaust survivor Etty Hillesum to African educational entrepreneur Fred Swaniker--who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose. In short, this book is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it's also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom and choice, that tells us to be true to ourselves, to march to the beat of our own drummer at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, and binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme degree--and, in the process, we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments. The Social Animal gave us a tale of human nature. The Road to Character traced the history of a great moral tradition--a riveting examination of morality in our time, but with The Committed Life, Brooks turns his mind to what happens when we put commitment-making at the center of life, producing one of Brooks' most personal and revolutionary books yet.

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Critic Reviews

“Praise for David Brooks's 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 "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." --The Washington Post "A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin." --The Guardian (U.K.) The Social Animal "Provocative . . . seeks to do nothing less than revolutionize our notions about how we function and conduct our lives." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "[A] fascinating study of the unconscious mind and its impact on our lives." -- The Economist "Compulsively readable . . . Brooks's considerable achievement comes in his ability to elevate the unseen aspects of private experience into a vigorous and challenging conversation about what we all share." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Brooks surveys a stunning amount of research and cleverly connects it to everyday experience. . . . As in [ Bobos in Paradise ], he shows genius in sketching archetypes and coining phrases." -- The Wall Street Journal”

Praise for David Brooks

“David Brooks’s gift—as he might put it in his swift, engaging way—is for making obscure but potent social studies research accessible and even startling.”The New York Times Book Review

“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

“Brooks’s considerable achievement comes in his ability to elevate the unseen aspects of private experience into a vigorous and challenging conversation about what we all share.”San Francisco Chronicle

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About the Author

David Brooks is one of the nation's leading writers and commentators. He is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on PBS NewsHour and Meet the Press. He is the bestselling author of The Road to Character, 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.

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Product Details

Publisher
Random House USA Inc
Published
16th April 2019
Pages
320
ISBN
9780812993264

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