Agency (the Psychological History Of Human Progress)

By (author) Seligman Martin
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By (author) Seligman Martin
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From the world''s most influential psychologist - a landmark work that shows how human agency is the key to building a better future.
Description:

''The message of this book is both highly liberating and optimistic'', Rory Sutherland

Drawing on six decades of pioneering research and a sweeping reexamination of the last 2500 years-from Periclean Athens and the Hebrew Torah to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Civil Rights Movement-Martin Seligman shows how rises and falls in agency have steered the course of history.

Agency is the big idea for our times: when individuals have confidence, optimism and imagination, civilizations leap forward. In their absence, societies stagnate-no matter how rich their resources or how brilliant their citizens.

This remarkable book shows how individuals can act with agency and, with a clear-eyed view of an AI-transformed future, argues that we are entering the next great era of human flourishing.


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This book feels both like the capstone of a brilliant career and the beginning of a new paradigm. Agency is a thrilling achievement from the person who has most changed how we think about human flourishing.
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In this extraordinary book, Martin Seligman shows that one phenomena, agency, has propelled all human progress and flourishing. This will enable you to understand the past in new ways-but even more importantly, to build the future you want.
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An intriguing and robustly argued worldview that puts the creative human mind at the center of history.
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The message of this book is both highly liberating and optimistic. It also gives credit for progress to millions of ordinary people blessed with the right mindset, rather than to a few special people blessed with the right ideas. It also describes our present dilemma: we would have much to be optimistic about, if only we could learn to become more optimistic.
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Martin Seligman is among the most influential psychologists in history, with seminal contributions spread over multiple decades straddling two centuries. But this may be his most important book yet. From a perspective
that he above all commands-the positive parts of human nature- Seligman explains how we have improved the human condition in the past, and therefore what we will need to do to improve it in the future.


Review quote:
Martin Seligman brings his unrelenting curiosity and psychological insight to bear on a topic that we desperately need to better understand: progress. Exploring the prospects and possibilities of human agency from the past to the present, his sweeping book distills the wisdom of many lifetimes and reminds us, on nearly every page, that optimism is a virtue.
Biographical note:
Martin Seligman, PhD, is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Positive Psychology Center, and former president of the American Psychological Association. He received his BA in philosophy from Princeton University, and his PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and holds ten honorary doctorates. He was named the most influential psychologist in the world by Academic Influence. Along with writing for numerous scholarly publications and appearing in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and many others, he is also the author and coauthor of over thirty books, including Flourish, Authentic Happiness, and Tomorrowmind.