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‘There to fill the Sapiens-size hole in your life’ Observer

A groundbreaking global overview of philosophy, travelling the world to provide a wide-ranging map of human thought

One of the great unexplained wonders of history is that philosophy flowered entirely separately in China, India and Ancient Greece at more or less the same time. These writings would have a profound impact on the development of distinctive cultures in different parts of the world.

In How the World Thinks Julian Baggini sets out to expand our horizons, exploring the philosophies of Japan, India, China and the Muslim world, as well as the lesser-known oral traditions of Africa and Australia’s first peoples. Interviewing thinkers from around the globe, Baggini asks questions such as: why is the West is more individualistic than the East? What makes secularism a less powerful force in the Islamic world than in Europe? And how has China resisted pressures for greater political freedom?

Baggini shows that by gaining greater knowledge of how others think we take the first step to a greater understanding of ourselves.

‘Terrific. The intellectual and spiritual generosity of this book makes it an essential text for our fractious and dangerously divided era’ Richard Holloway, author of Stories We Tell Ourselves

‘This bold fascinating book seeks to inhabit other philosophical traditions, with humility but without patronisingly exempting them from the critique he applies to ours… Deft [and] rigorous’ Jane O’Grady, Financial Times