The Book

Much of modern Western life, from its technology to its everyday habits of thought, assumes that each person is a separate ego, cut off from the world and set against it. Alan Watts examines that assumption in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.

Watts sets out an alternative in plain terms, drawing on the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta. His account suggests that the boundary we feel between ourselves and everything else is not the whole truth about who we are.

Watts, a British-born writer and former Episcopal priest, writes with a sharp sense of humor. His target is the idea that the self is a lone ego facing a universe of alien physical objects.