A Guide for the Perplexed by Jonathan Levi

A Guide for the Perplexed by Jonathan Levi

An inspired critique of modern materialistic values and a road map for achieving one's true, higher potential from one of the wisest minds of our time.*

This is what my life has been leading to, said the maverick economist E. F. Schumacher upon completing A Guide for the Perplexed, his summation of a lifetime of wisdom. The author of the classic Small Is Beautiful, the eco bible (Time) named one of the Times Literary Supplement's 100 Most Influential Books Since World War I, Schumacher charts the failings of materialistic scientism, the system of thought that dominates the developed world and which Schumacher charges with narrowing the horizons of human experience. Instead, he seeks to offer a new, far more expansive map for living that liberates our goals beyond the constraints of logic and inspires in us the faith to choose a life of higher significance. Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns, he writes, but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us something much better: that we can become oak trees.

Jonathan Levi is a writer and producer from the United States, and the author of A Handbook for the Perplexed. Many periodicals have published his short tales and articles, including Granta, Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, Terra Nova, The Nation, and The New York Times. He was born in New York and now resides in Rome, Italy.