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Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief Hardcover – 12 April 1999
Jordan B. Peterson (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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Why have people from different cultures and eras formulated myths and stories with similar structures? What does this similarity tell us about the mind, morality, and structure of the world itself? From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps ofMeaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.
- ISBN-100415922216
- ISBN-13978-0415922210
- Edition1st
- PublisherRoutledge
- Publication date12 April 1999
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions19.05 x 3.81 x 24.13 cm
- Print length564 pages
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Product description
Review
"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 and experience...with patients who include prisoners, alcoholics and the mentally ill." -- Montreal Gazette
"This is not a book to be abstracted and summarized. Rather it should be read at leisure...and employed as a stimulus and reference to expand one's own maps of meaning. I plan to return to Peterson's musings and mapping many times over the next few years." -- Am JPsychiatry
"...a brilliant enlargement of our understanding of human motivation...a beautiful work." -- Sheldon H. White, Harvard University
"...unique...a brilliant new synthesis of the meaning of mythologies and our human need to relate in story form the deep structure of our experiences." -- Keith Oatley, University of Toronto
Review
"This is not a book to be abstracted and summarized. Rather it should be read at leisure...and employed as a stimulus and reference to expand one's own maps of meaning. I plan to return to Peterson's musings and mapping many times over the next few years." -- Am J Psychiatry
"...a brilliant enlargement of our understanding of human motivation...a beautiful work." -- Sheldon H. White, Harvard University
"...unique...a brilliant new synthesis of the meaning of mythologies and our human need to relate in story form the deep structure of our experiences." -- Keith Oatley, University of Toronto
From the Publisher
About the Author
Jordan B. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and Professor at the University of Toronto and was formerly at Harvard University. He has published numerous articles on drug abuse, alcoholism and aggression.
Product details
- Publisher : Routledge; 1st edition (12 April 1999)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 564 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0415922216
- ISBN-13 : 978-0415922210
- Dimensions : 19.05 x 3.81 x 24.13 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 92,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 79 in Psychobiology
- 160 in Psychology of Learning
- 376 in Psychology Movements (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.
Customer reviews

Reviewed in Australia on 4 November 2020
Top reviews from Australia
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Sadly, the enjoyment of the book is somewhat diminished by the low-quality provider Amazon sourced to print the book. The front and back cover should be considered the grade below 'paper' and more importantly some words come out half-printed (though in Amazon's defence this was only in handful of instances). Book deserved better!

Reviewed in Australia on 4 November 2020
Sadly, the enjoyment of the book is somewhat diminished by the low-quality provider Amazon sourced to print the book. The front and back cover should be considered the grade below 'paper' and more importantly some words come out half-printed (though in Amazon's defence this was only in handful of instances). Book deserved better!


This is a scientific book and I need to be sure that what I'm reading is identical to the original edition, and no matter how much money I saved this way, I'm not happy with this. This isn't what was advertised.
None of this even mentions that the copy I received was dented and scratched, either. Poor packaging.

Reviewed in Australia on 22 September 2020
This is a scientific book and I need to be sure that what I'm reading is identical to the original edition, and no matter how much money I saved this way, I'm not happy with this. This isn't what was advertised.
None of this even mentions that the copy I received was dented and scratched, either. Poor packaging.

I've read 12 rules for life by JBP and follow his recorded lectures on the Psychological significance of the early bible stories.
So if this is his Magnum Opus, as declared by some, I'm doubling down.
Was delivered quick, in good condition, minor bruises which is better than fine, it's for me, if I was to gift wrap, I would try find at the store, to see the condition.

I've read 12 rules for life by JBP and follow his recorded lectures on the Psychological significance of the early bible stories.
So if this is his Magnum Opus, as declared by some, I'm doubling down.
Was delivered quick, in good condition, minor bruises which is better than fine, it's for me, if I was to gift wrap, I would try find at the store, to see the condition.

Book arrived damaged/bent.
Great for the budget minded philosopher.
Top reviews from other countries


Essentially he is encouraging the reader to discover what is meaningful to them as individuals. This point is getting lost on people with rigid and flawed ideologies.
This book is complex and is the culmination of many years of deep, rational thought.



The book that they delivered is Indian version, printed and bound in India priced at Rs 795. So you figure it out yourself if one doesn't feel cheated.
I think it would not have harmed if they had shown the correct price. Yes the delivery charge would may have led one to give a second thought but to entice customer using the kind of ruse as the above would only weaken one's trust in the brand.