The modern world has brought us a range of extraordinary benefitsand joys, including technology, medicine and transport. But it canalso feel as though modern times have plunged us ever deeper intogreed, despair and agitation. Seldom has the world felt more privilegedand resource-rich yet also worried, blinkered, furious, panicked andself-absorbed.How to Survive the Modern World is the ultimate guide to navigatingour unusual times. It identifies a range of themes that present acutechallenges to our mental wellbeing. The book tackles our relationshipto the news media, our ideas of love and sex, our assumptions aboutmoney and our careers, our attitudes to animals and the natural world,our admiration for science and technology, our belief in individualismand secularism and our suspicion of quiet and solitude. In all cases,the book helps us to understand how we got to where we are, diggingdeeply and fascinatingly into the history of ideas, while pointing ustowards a saner individual and collective future.The emphasis isn't just on understanding modern times but alsoon knowing how we can best relate to the difficulties these present.The book helps us to form a calmer, more authentic, more resilientand sometimes more light-hearted relationship to the follies andobsessions of our age. If modern times are (in part) something of adisease, this is both the diagnostic and the soothing, hope-filled cure.