Monica Furlong followed Watts's travels conducting interviews with his family, colleagues, and intimate friends, to provide an analysis of the intellectual, cultural, and deeply personal influences behind this truly extraordinary life.
Monica Furlong
Paperback
6 x 9, 264 pp | 978-1-893361-32-4
The first and only full-length biography of one of the most charismatic spiritual innovators of the twentieth century.
Through his widely popular books and lectures, Alan Watts (1915-1973) did more to introduce Eastern philosophy and religion to Western minds than any figure before or since. Watts touched the lives of many. He was a renegade Zen teacher, an Anglican priest, a lecturer, an academic, an entertainer, a leader of the San Francisco renaissance, and the author of more than thirty books, including The Way of Zen, Psychotherapy East and West and The Spirit of Zen.
Monica Furlong followed Watts's travels from his birthplace in England to the San Francisco Bay Area where he ultimately settled, conducting in-depth interviews with his family, colleagues, and intimate friends, to provide an analysis of the intellectual, cultural, and deeply personal influences behind this truly extraordinary life.
“For illuminating details on how Watts happened to be in the right place at the right time to bring Zen to the attention of millions, this biography is a must.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Lucid, intelligent, and compelling...inspires new respect for one of the most important and controversial figures in twentieth-century Zen.”
—Jack Maguire, author of Waking Up: A Week Inside a Zen Monastery and Essential Buddhism
Foreword to the SkyLight Lives Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Paradise Garden, 1915б920
2. The Education of a Brahmin, 1920б932
3. Christmas Zen, 1932б938
4. The Towers of Manhattan, 1938б941
5. Colored Christian, 1941б947
6. Correspondence, 1947б950
7. A Priest Inhibited, 1950б951
8. The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951б960
9. Counterculture, 1960б968
10. The Home Behind Home, 1969б973
Notes
Books by Alan Watts
Index
