#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Brooks challenges us to rebalance the scales between the focus on external success—“résumé virtues”—and our core principles. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has … York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives.
Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade.
Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth.
“Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”
Praise for 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
“A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”—The Guardian
“Original and eye-opening . . . 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
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Finally a deep, insightful book about the true substance of a person–their character. David Brooks’ brilliant insights and selection of historical persons of varied character traits are infused throughout. I underlined and bracketed many pages for future reflection. A great gift for those in the thick of life that are ready for it in today’s selfie culture. Brooks is somewhat ambivalent about the dangers of social media, but clarifies in the final pages how each moral climate is a collective response to the problems of the moment and for the readers that do get through to the final pages and his guidepost/proposal of “The Humility Code” will be very pleased.
Interesting, not what I expected as it is biographies of many people thought to have good character
I read this book for a book study at my church. It was not likely a book I would have picked to read on my own but I’m glad I got to read it. It does an in depth look at several well known people and describes character attributes of each. It is a history lesson, an eye opener and a character builder! The greatest lesson I learned was to consider going outside your everyday bubble and consider exploring the rest of the world. Books are such a great way to do that!
The Life I want to be remembered for is how I need to live each day
This book has everything I like about David Brooks on PBS Friday nights.
Quite surprisingly spiritual and theologically accurate for me a doctoral level theologian. His choice of subjects is both widely diverse and able to illustrate his basic theses. A very good book.
Awesome writing and wise storytelling. David Brooks impresses. He gives us palatable life lessons in a thick reduction of reality.
Boring, not engaging
Thought-provoking and inspirational!
I like David Brooke’s writing style.
Brooks’ contention is well-expressed: Western Civilization now focuses less on character than in past generations. The stories he tells – of lives lived for something “larger than self” – are powerful and inspiring. I agree that we may have gone too far in stressing “personal truth” and “authenticity” to the detriment of “common good” in child-rearing and in personal development. Much of our public discourse seems to have lost even the words to describe virtues, values, and evidence of character, not to mention having lost the will to exemplify them. In fact, much of the chaos in politics, at the moment, can be traced to just that sort of ill-considered attention to self above others.
However, it seems it is possible to go too far in stressing “the common good” over “personal truth” and “authenticity,” as well. As products of an earlier time that focused much more on responsibility to others than on the value of self, many in the Boomer generation have battled the depression, addiction, co-dependence, suicidal thoughts and actions, and internalized rage that results from an assumed (or taught) requirement to always put others above oneself. The effort to “find oneself” seems to be more a part of the Boomers than of any previous generation; the irresistible struggle to “live one’s truth” that underlies the plethora of Movements (Women’s, LGBTQ, #MeToo, and any number of ethnic and religious Movements throughout the world) has also resulted in inspiring stories of honesty, courage and power.
Perhaps we can consider that both the common good and living one’s truth are valuable and essential to civilization. Perhaps we need not pass along the sense, imposed on so many of us, that we do not deserve the gifts we have received, but must constantly strive to earn them. Perhaps we can tell our children that they are, indeed, precious, beautiful, smart and powerful – and that those characteristics cannot be deserved or earned; they are given as a trust, to be used to improve the world and the lives of others. And we can be sure to “catch them in the act” of evidencing the generosity, faithfulness, honesty, hope, self-sacrifice, courage, dedication to duty, and other virtues so needed by our world, so that we can affirm them and anchor them in joy and love!
A must read