For this study, de Botton asks where our worries about status come from and what, if anything, we can do to reduce them. He looks at how people have coped with these anxieties in the past with a range of unexpected examples and entertaining anecdotes.
Alain de Botton was born in 1969. He is the author of Essays in Love, The Romantic Movement, Kiss and Tell, How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel. He lives in London.