The Practice of Wisdom

This eloquent and elegant book, written by four wise and worldly Harvard scholars, is a gift of love and light in our dark times! The central themes of storytelling, care for others, and rituals that cultivate mature self-knowledge in the best of the West and East take us beyond myopic learning and narrow erudition. Don’t miss this intellectual and spiritual gem in the great tradition of the inimitable William James! – Cornel West
The Practice of Wisdom reminds us that human wisdom is developed through our lived experience, religious rituals, texts and traditions, but also through traditions that are not our own. A wonderful conversation partner on the never-ending journey to explore wisdom beyond ourselves. – Reverend Teresa Hord Owens, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
We live in a time rich in information and starved of wisdom, and the essays at the heart of this book remind us how far apart the two can be. Wisdom is not what we know but what we practice, and its truest form is care. The Practice of Wisdom is a serious and moving inquiry into how human beings have sought to live well in dangerous times. – Jim Yong Kim, former president of Dartmouth College and the World Bank Group, and cofounder of Partners In Health

Davíd Carrasco is the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University and Director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive. He is the author of The Religions of Mesoamerica, City of Sacrifice, and Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire.

Arthur Kleinman is Rabb Professor in the Department of Anthropology and has taught for over forty years in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the author of The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition and The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor.

Stephanie Paulsell is Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies, Emerita, at Harvard Divinity School. She is a former columnist at the Christian Century and the author of Religion Around Virginia Woolf, and coeditor of Toni Morrison.

Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology and Director of the Asia Center at Harvard University. He is the author of The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life and To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China.

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