08/30/2021
Borden spotlights historical figures noted for their wisdom in this focused debut. Drawing inspiration from his own conviction to “plot my life’s course with more confidence when following in the footsteps of history’s great men and women,” he pinpoints 18 of “history’s great sages” for analysis and comparison–and charts out their personal, professional, and philosophical backgrounds. Attempting to showcase a variety of cultures and eras, Borden’s subjects range from Ptah-Hotep to Winston Churchill. He examines their guiding ideals, insight he argues is crucial to “live a happy and flourishing life,” and suggests that their combined knowledge can help illuminate what he calls the “Way,” a path through life “common to most successful people and cultures.”
Borden examines surprising and relatively obscure details of his visionaries’ lives alongside their better known ideologies, which he shares in snippets to capture readers’ attention. He writes of Aristotle’s first wife and their distinctive bond that, despite her death at a young age, prompted his last wishes for his bones to buried with hers, and he divulges Teddy Roosevelt’s remarkable fascination with the badlands of North Dakota—and melees between unusual pets in the White House, including a badger “whose temper was short but whose nature was fundamentally friendly.” Some of the more conventionally inspirational accounts, meanwhile, include Zhu Xi’s efforts in the neo-Confucian movement, Catherine the Great’s creation of Russia’s first national education system, and George Washington Carver’s endeavors in sustainable agriculture.
Borden closes with memorable maxims from each figure, organized into relatable topics—such as “work-life balance,” “virtue and character,” and “passions”—to illustrate the commonsense knowledge of his models. Some readers will wish for more female icons, though Borden acknowledges that history has disallowed women’s empowerment to “fully express themselves” while noting, in the wise words of Elizabeth Tudor, that “the past cannot be cured.” Borden’s casual commentary will please lighthearted history and inspiration buffs.
Takeaway: A lighthearted examination of the wisdom offered by a brace of leaders throughout history
Great for fans of: Walter Isaacson’s The Genius Biographies, Derek Wellington Johnson’s The Wisdom of Leaders.
Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: B Marketing copy: A
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. - Kirkus Reviews
Packed with valuable maxims to ponder on, Sage Advice is a great book to dip in and out of depending on the subject and situation at hand. - San Francisco Book Review
Borden's casual commentary will please lighthearted history and inspiration buffs. - Booklife by Publishers Weekly
2021-08-05
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.