Product Description

Bertrand Russell’s recipe for good living - this is popular philosophy, or even self-help, as it should be written.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98179 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Review

'He writes what he calls common sense, but is in fact uncommon wisdom.' - The Observer

From the Back Cover

With a new preface by A.C. Grayling

‘He writes what he calls common sense, but is in fact uncommon wisdom.’ – The Observer

The Conquest of Happiness is Bertrand Russell’s recipe for good living. First published in 1930, it pre-dates the current obsession with self-help by decades. Leading the reader step by step through the causes of unhappiness and the personal choices, compromises and sacrifices that (may) lead to the final, affirmative conclusion of ‘The Happy Man’, this is popular philosophy, or even self-help, as it should be written. First published: 1930.

Customer Reviews

He never intended this as a "philosophical masterpiece"
One of the reviewers complained that this was not a "philosophical masterpiece". Of course it isn't. It's an excellent work of popular psychology aimed at the layman. As Russell himself commented:
"Unsophisticated readers, for whom it was intended, liked it... Highbrows, on the contrary regarded it as a contemptible pot-boiler..."
These words are from Russell's autobiography.
The contention of the same reviewer that Russell was a deeply unhappy man is a plump over-simplification of the truth that anyone who is brilliant and intellectually rigorous as Russell was will never - in Russell's own words - find consolation in philosophy. Never satisfied by anything less then what could be backed up by fact he suffered from the corresponding lack of assurance that certainty brings. This does not mean his life was without joy or he was generally unhappy. Read and enjoy, and if you are a highbrow unable to go beyond Principia Mathemetica, at least try to recall that you are a human being for whom cerebration is a part time job and that there is more in Russell then is dreamt of in your philosophy.

An Excellent Read and Practical
I have to say that when I bought this book I was pretty skeptical and even cynical about the topic matter, having read Russell's History of Western Philosophy and some of the other titles in the Routledge Classics and expecting something similar.

I was very pleasantly surprised and intend to re-read this book annually, Russell wrote this book for a mass audience, combining philosophy, psychology and common sense Russell first surveys what he believes to be the main causes of unhappiness, byronic unhappiness, competition, boredom and excitment, fatigue, envy, the sense of sin, persecution mania and fears of public opinion, and then proceeds to consider the possible sources of happiness Zest, affection, the family, work, impersonal interests and effort or resignation.

Some of it can appear dated and the work of the age in which it was written, for instance I think that he wrote about a sense of sin at a time where this could be a great deal more troubling to the conscience than present day, then again I remind myself that there are probably people and places where this remains very much the case today.

I cant fault Russell in his ultimate conclusion that to be happy one should live objectively, have a wide range of interests and be as sincerely and genuinely interested in and warm towards others, engaging with the world instead of retreating from it where possible. The book is full of great advice about how living after this fashion can permit you to cope with the sources of unhappiness which Russell perceives.

Russell also, in his wisdom, does not pretend to have all the answers and when he does touch upon the topic of psychology does say that it is possible that on occasion more professional advice and assistance could be called for, something that I think is very much lacking in other self-help genres or treatise.

I would also recommend this book as very readable, its jargon free, the pace is excellent and I enjoyed it as much as any book of its kind or more light reading like genre fiction.

Very enjoyable book if you suffer from unhappiness sometimes
When searching in an online library with the keyword 'happiness' yesterday I was surprised to find a book by Bertrand Russell. The scope of his output was amazing, and it seems all to be very high quality. I was searching for a book that might cheer me up because I was feeling down, and this book really did cheer me up. It isn't mindless optimism but is good common sense on how to avoid a lot of the main causes of unhappiness. Russell was a brilliant scholar and suffered from unhappiness himself at times in his life, and he was even suicidal through most of his youth, and here he shares his own solutions in order to help others. Russell was a great altruist and I'm grateful for him to have shared these bits of common sense. There are chapters on the various causes of unhappiness in practice, (this is a practical book), including competition, boredom and excitement, fatigue, envy, the sense of sin, and persecution mania etc. From reading most of the book yesterday I have extracted more useful common sense than in any similar book. It reminds me of the good common sense from Plutarch's Moralia. This really is a gem for someone who feels unhappy, perhaps suffers from depression, and wants to feel better. If you don't have any such problems and you are just trying to read Russell's entire oevre to be a completest, then by skim reading this you might indeed not find it as interesting as a challenging philosophical work, but this is a useful practical book for anyone that needs it. As with any other practical books, they are probably not as interesting as theoretical books for general reading, but if they cover something that effects your life they can be a great help, and this is a very pleasant book. It definitely cheered me up just like it did a previous reviewer. Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who is feeling unhappy in general and doesn't really know why, as this will probably make you realise a lot of the reasons for feeling unhappy, and will also provide you with some valuable common sense.