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12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos Paperback – 2 May 2019
Jordan B. Peterson (Author) See search results for this author |
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The #1 Sunday Times bestseller from 'the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now' (New York Times) - now in paperback.
How should we live properly in a world of chaos and uncertainty?
Jordan Peterson has helped millions of people, young and old, men and women, aim at a life of responsibility and meaning. Now he can help you.
Drawing on his own work as a clinical psychologist and on lessons from humanity's oldest myths and stories, Peterson offers twelve profound and realistic principles to live by. After all, as he reminds us, we each have a vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world.
Deep, rewarding and enlightening, 12 Rules for Life is a lifeboat built solidly for stormy seas: ancient wisdom applied to our contemporary problems.
- Print length448 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin
- Publication date2 May 2019
- Dimensions12.9 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm
- ISBN-100141988517
- ISBN-13978-0141988511
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- By (Author) Jordan B. Peterson: 12 Rules for Life An Antidote to ChaosInternational Bestseller Author: Jordan B. PetersonPaperback
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Review
The most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now ― New York Times
Everyone must read 12 Rules For Life... The most enlightening book I have read in ages. Google him if you like, if it makes you feel better. It will, by the way. But get the book, that is the most important thing. And then read it. And then pass it on to a friend -- Chris Evans
In a different intellectual league... Peterson can take the most difficult ideas and make them entertaining. This may be why his YouTube videos have had 35m views. He is fast becoming the closest that academia has to a rock star ― Observer
Charismatic and exceptionally articulate.... Peterson is a new kind of public intellectual, using YouTube to spread ideas infinitely wider than predecessors such as Bertrand Russell or Isaiah Berlin -- Amol Rajan ― New Statesman
Anyone who is in a position of leadership would find it very insightful ... Jordan Peterson is a profound writer -- Gina Miller
It is that rare thing: self-help that might actually be helpful ― New Statesman
Fascinating ... Peterson is brilliant on many subjects -- Bryan Appleyard ― Sunday Times
One of the most eclectic and stimulating public intellectuals at large today, fearless and impassioned -- Matthew d'Ancona ― Guardian
Profound, charismatic and serious... One of the most important thinkers to emerge on the world stage for many years -- Tim Lott ― Spectator
The most sought-after psychologist in the world ― Psychology Today
A wonderful psychologist -- Malcolm Gladwell
Like the best intellectual polymaths, Peterson invites his readers to embark on their own intellectual, spiritual and ideological journeys... You have nothing to lose but your own misery ― Toronto Star
The most important and influential Canadian thinker since Marshall McLuhan. His bold synthesis of psychology, anthropology, science, politics and comparative religion is forming a genuinely humanistic university of the future -- Camille Paglia
Someone with not only humanity and humour, but serious depth and substance ... Peterson has a truly cosmopolitan and omnivorous intellect... There is a burning sincerity to the man ― Spectator
A rock-star academic, a cool, cowboy-boot-wearing public thinker who directs tough love at overprotected youth ... Peterson twirls ideas around like a magician -- Melanie Reid ― The Times
Jordan Peterson is a Canadian psychologist whose seemingly overnight ascent to cultural rockstar comes after years of deep scholarship in many disciplines ― Psychology Today
12 Rules for Life hits home - from identifying the deeply engrained hierarchical ladder that motivates our decision making to asking indispensable and sometimes politically unpopular questions about your life and suggesting ways to better it -- Howard Bloom, author of 'The Lucifer Principle'
Peterson has become a kind of secular prophet who, in an era of lobotomised conformism, thinks out of the box ... His message is overwhelmingly vital -- Melanie Philips ― The Times
From the Back Cover
What are the most valuable things that everyone should know?
Acclaimed clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has influenced the modern understanding of personality, and now he has become one of the world's most popular public thinkers, with his lectures on topics from the Bible to romantic relationships to mythology drawing tens of millions of viewers. In an era of unprecedented change and polarizing politics, his frank and refreshing message about the value of individual responsibility and ancient wisdom has resonated around the world.
In this book, he provides twelve profound and practical principles for how to live a meaningful life, from setting your house in order before criticising others to comparing yourself to who you were yesterday, not someone else today. Happiness is a pointless goal, he shows us. Instead we must search for meaning, not for its own sake, but as a defence against the suffering that is intrinsic to our existence.
Drawing on vivid examples from the author's clinical practice and personal life, cutting edge psychology and philosophy, and lessons from humanity's oldest myths and stories, 12 Rules for Life offers a deeply rewarding antidote to the chaos in our lives: eternal truths applied to our modern problems.
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : Penguin; 1st edition (2 May 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 448 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0141988517
- ISBN-13 : 978-0141988511
- Dimensions : 12.9 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His main areas of study are the psychology of religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of personality and performance.
From 1993 to 1997, Peterson lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, while teaching and conducting research at Harvard University as an assistant and an associate professor in the psychology department. During his time at Harvard, he studied aggression arising from drug and alcohol abuse, and supervised a number of unconventional thesis proposals. Afterwards, he returned to Canada and took up a post as a professor at the University of Toronto.
In 1999, Routledge published Peterson's Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. The book, which took Peterson 13 years to complete, describes a comprehensive theory for how we construct meaning, represented by the mythical process of the exploratory hero, and provides an interpretation of religious and mythical models of reality presented in a way that is compatible with modern scientific understanding of how the brain works. It synthesizes ideas drawn from narratives in mythology, religion, literature and philosophy, as well as research from neuropsychology, in "the classic, old-fashioned tradition of social science."
Peterson's primary goal was to examine why individuals, not simply groups, engage in social conflict, and to model the path individuals take that results in atrocities like the Gulag, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Rwandan genocide. Peterson considers himself a pragmatist, and uses science and neuropsychology to examine and learn from the belief systems of the past and vice versa, but his theory is primarily phenomenological. In the book, he explores the origins of evil, and also posits that an analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality.
Harvey Shepard, writing in the Religion column of the Montreal Gazette, stated: "To me, the book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul searching. ... Peterson's vision is both fully informed by current scientific and pragmatic methods, and in important ways deeply conservative and traditional."
In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief aired on TVOntario. He has also appeared on that network on shows such as Big Ideas, and as a frequent guest and essayist on The Agenda with Steve Paikin since 2008.
In 2013, Peterson began recording his lectures ("Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief") and uploading them to YouTube. His YouTube channel has gathered more than 600,000 subscribers and his videos have received more than 35 million views as of January 2018. He has also appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Gavin McInnes Show, Steven Crowder's Louder with Crowder, Dave Rubin's The Rubin Report, Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio, h3h3Productions's H3 Podcast, Sam Harris's Waking Up podcast, Gad Saad's The Saad Truth series and other online shows. In December 2016, Peterson started his own podcast, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, which has 37 episodes as of January 10, 2018, including academic guests such as Camille Paglia, Martin Daly, and James W. Pennebaker, while on his channel he has also interviewed Stephen Hicks, Richard J. Haier, and Jonathan Haidt among others. In January 2017, he hired a production team to film his psychology lectures at the University of Toronto.
Peterson with his colleagues Robert O. Pihl, Daniel Higgins, and Michaela Schippers produced a writing therapy program with series of online writing exercises, titled the Self Authoring Suite. It includes the Past Authoring Program, a guided autobiography; two Present Authoring Programs, which allow the participant to analyze their personality faults and virtues in terms of the Big Five personality model; and the Future Authoring Program, which guides participants through the process of planning their desired futures. The latter program was used with McGill University undergraduates on academic probation to improve their grades, as well since 2011 at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. The Self Authoring Programs were developed partially from research by James W. Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin and Gary Latham at the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto. Pennebaker demonstrated that writing about traumatic or uncertain events and situations improved mental and physical health, while Latham demonstrated that personal planning exercises help make people more productive. According to Peterson, more than 10,000 students have used the program as of January 2017, with drop-out rates decreasing by 25% and GPAs rising by 20%.
In May 2017 he started new project, titled "The psychological significance of the Biblical stories", a series of live theatre lectures in which he analyzes archetypal narratives in Genesis as patterns of behaviour vital for both personal, social and cultural stability.
His upcoming book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" will be released on January 23rd, 2018. It was released in the UK on January 16th. Dr. Peterson is currently on tour throughout North America, Europe and Australia.
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I think he should roll back on criticising other people's writing (rule 6: get your own house in order). I quickly got bogged down when rather than illustrate and explain his point he rambled off on some exegesis of the first chapters of Genesis. You can't draw timeless truths from books that are neither timeless nor true and I wish he would get over this thing he has for holy books. When he sticks to evolutionary biology he starts to say interesting and useful things. I enjoyed reading another passage about his hometown I dipped into but trawling through biblical passages waiting for him to make a point is extremely tiresome. My copy will be available soon through a 2nd hand book charity on here if you want it. As new, partially read.
I enjoyed the anecdotes and personal stories, which mostly come in the second half of the book. Unfortunately, I found the first half of the book hard going and it seems that most of his foundational ideas are taken from Heidegger’s concept of ‘Being’ which Peterson does not try to justify or explain, he just takes it for granted even though apparently Heidegger struggled to explain it (page xxxi).
Peterson gives case after case where we should take responsibility, tell the truth, repair what’s broken, obey rules and standards and have values and moral obligations, yet without once explaining how any of these things can exist given his evolutionary, materialistic view of life.
In particular, he doesn’t seem to take proper account of the is-ought problem and appears to me at least, to commit the naturalistic fallacy in moving from describing the way the world is suffering (is) and then tells us what we should do about it (ought) without proper justification.
I may have found myself re-reading certain sentences or paragraphs I struggled to take in, and used my dictionary more regularly than in a game of scrabble as he uses some words I’ve never heard spoken but it was totally worth the read.
I like him a lot (from what I’ve seen on YouTube and his words in this book) and wish him every success as he seems like he truly wants to help us all be better.
This is not a book to attempt at a fast pace. Take your time, digest what he’s trying to get across and you’ll get the most out of it.
It’s a bit like giving up smoking... you have to really want to give up to truly commit. I got to a point this year where I really wanted to make a change and this book offers a highly informed helping hand to set you on the right path.
Prior to this I’d read The Chimp Paradox which I’d also recommend for those who are trying to sort themselves out.