Art of Self-Improvement
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A01=Anna Katharina Schaffner
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
ancient wisdom
Author_Anna Katharina Schaffner
automatic-update
be good
be humble
be present
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HPM
Category=HRAX
Category=QDTM
Category=QRAX
Category=VXA
christianity
cognitive behavioral therapy
control your mind
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
emotionally present
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_mind-body-spirit
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
faith in humanity
hope
human nature
humanist psychology
Know thyself
Language_English
let it go
mentalize
mindfulness
neuroplasticity
PA=Available
persevere
positive thinking
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
romanticism
self-cultivation
self-esteem movement
self-help
simplify
softlaunch
stoicism
use your imagination
Product details
- ISBN 9780300247718
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 09 Nov 2021
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A brilliant distillation of the key ideas behind successful self-improvement practices throughout history, showing us how they remain relevant today
“Schaffner finds more in contemporary self-improvement literature to admire than criticize. . . . [A] revelatory book.”—Kathryn Hughes, Times Literary Supplement
Self-help today is a multi-billion-dollar global industry, one often seen as a by-product of neoliberalism and capitalism. Far from being a recent phenomenon, however, the practice of self-improvement has a long and rich history, extending all the way back to ancient China. For millennia, philosophers, sages, and theologians have reflected on the good life and devised strategies on how to achieve it.
Focusing on ten core ideas of self-improvement that run through the world’s advice literature, Anna Katharina Schaffner reveals the ways they have evolved across cultures and historical eras, and why they continue to resonate with us today. Reminding us that there is much to learn from looking at time-honed models, Schaffner also examines the ways that self-improvement practices provide powerful barometers of the values, anxieties, and aspirations that preoccupy us at particular moments in time and expose basic assumptions about our purpose and nature.
“Schaffner finds more in contemporary self-improvement literature to admire than criticize. . . . [A] revelatory book.”—Kathryn Hughes, Times Literary Supplement
Self-help today is a multi-billion-dollar global industry, one often seen as a by-product of neoliberalism and capitalism. Far from being a recent phenomenon, however, the practice of self-improvement has a long and rich history, extending all the way back to ancient China. For millennia, philosophers, sages, and theologians have reflected on the good life and devised strategies on how to achieve it.
Focusing on ten core ideas of self-improvement that run through the world’s advice literature, Anna Katharina Schaffner reveals the ways they have evolved across cultures and historical eras, and why they continue to resonate with us today. Reminding us that there is much to learn from looking at time-honed models, Schaffner also examines the ways that self-improvement practices provide powerful barometers of the values, anxieties, and aspirations that preoccupy us at particular moments in time and expose basic assumptions about our purpose and nature.
Anna Katharina Schaffner is professor of cultural history at the University of Kent. She is the author of Exhaustion: A History and the novel The Truth about Julia.
