What is the point of working so hard? What can replace the shortage of soulmates? What else can one do in a hotel? Through these questions, and many others, Zeldin demonstrates that both the greatest problem and the greatest opportunity of the twenty-first century lie in our relationships with others. With endless examples from his unparalleled research and his experiences with the giants of modern business and politics, this book reveals how our society is full of untapped potential for human interactions. Zeldin illuminates how our lives can be enriched by the realisation that it is only by truly relating to others that we get a taste, even just a nibble, of what it is possible to experience as a human being.
As a philosopher and a historian Zeldin defies convention and categorisation ... There is certainly much prophetic in this engaging book -- John Thornhill Financial Times Zeldin is an engaging travel companion, flitting between biography and philosophy with an easy charm -- Natalie Haynes Independent A challenge and a success ... He is particularly good and funny on work and the apparently catastrophic affair we are having with management science -- Hannah Dawson Literary Review Eclectic, ambitious and highly thought-provoking -- Ian Critchley Sunday Times
Author
About Theodore Zeldin
Theodore Zeldin is an Oxford academic, and the author of numerous works of non-fiction including Conversations and An Intimate History of Humanity. Amongst his awards and honours he is a Commander of the Legion d'Honneur, a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a C.B.E., and has won the Wolfson Prize, Britain's top literary award for History.
