Alain de Botton

De Botton grew up in Switzerland, went to England's Harrow School,
and has a degree from the University of Cambridge. He is only in his
early 30s but his work has already been translated into 16 languages.
Other books include Essays in Love (1993), The Romantic Movement
(1994), Kiss and Tell (1995) and The Art of Travel (2002). The Consolations
of Philosophy (2000) was adapted for a British Channel 4 television
series, in which the author applied the thoughts of Socrates,
Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche to everyday
problems.
De Botton lives in London, where he is an Associate Research Fellow
of the Philosophy Programme of the University of London School
of Advanced Study.

Abraham Maslow

Born in 1908 to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, New York,
Maslow was the oldest of seven children. He was said to be shy, neurotic,
and depressive, but with a passionate curiosity and incredible
native intelligence (an IQ of 195) he excelled in school.
At college, Maslow's early influences were Harry Harlow, the distinguished
primate researcher, and the behaviorist Edward Thorndike.
While at Columbia University, Maslow's research into the sex lives of
college women attracted controversy. During his 14-year professorship
at Brooklyn College, his mentors included Alfred Adler, Karen Horney,
Eric Fromm, and Margaret Mead. The anthropologist Ruth Benedict
and founder of Gestalt therapy Max Wertheimer became friends and
models for the idea of the self-actualizing person. In 1951 Maslow
moved to Brandeis University, where he stayed until a year before his
death, and where Motivation and Personality was written.
In 1962 Maslow held a visiting fellowship at a Californian high-tech
company, which resulted in his adaptation of the self-actualization concept
to the business setting, related in Eupsychian Management: A
Journal (1965). Towards a Psychology of Being was published in 1962
and the classic The Farther Reaches of Human Nature a year after
Maslow's death in 1970.