SAGE ADVICE

A debut work turns to ancient wisdom for guidance on humanity’s future.

An environmental geologist, Borden has become increasingly dismayed with the “void in modern culture” that replaces the “philosophical wisdom of our ancestors” with “shallow ideas.” A flourishing future for people, he suggests, will not exist by divorcing themselves from the past but by following the “universal and applicable” ideals conveyed by humanity’s greatest thinkers. After introductory materials defending the value of “the wisdom of great historical figures,” the book is divided into two main sections, the first of which provides concise biographies of 18 “sages” identified by the author as philosophers worth following in the modern age, spanning from Ptah-Hotep of Egypt’s Old Kingdom in 2400 B.C.E. to Gandhi of the 20th century. Though the lives of nearly all the men and women surveyed did not overlap, Borden emphasizes a cohesiveness in their teachings that focuses on their “respect for what is divine…on the Earth, and in life” rather than the theological differences in their approaches to God (or gods). The volume’s second half distills quotations from the 18 sages into maxims that are divided thematically into nearly 70 chapters whose topics range from “Anger” and “Children” to “Possessions” and “Work-Life Balance.” Complemented by an ample assortment of maps, timelines, images of artworks, and historical photographs, this well-organized compendium of sagacity makes for an excellent coffee-table book. But the decision to ignore the “distinctive flaws” of the “great historic figures” in their biographies sometimes leads to unsettling narratives that, for instance, ignore Winston Churchill’s support of imperial conquests or paint George Washington as a benevolent owner of enslaved people. Moreover, though the work is intentionally diverse in its chronology, men make up a disproportionate number of its sages, with only Queen Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great representing the views of women. Similarly, while the book does an admirable job of downplaying Western figures with its considerable and varied inclusion of Asian and Middle Eastern thinkers, not a single sage from sub-Saharan African or pre-Columbian American civilizations appears.

An elegant and thoughtful book on human wisdom hampered by some omissions.