Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth

Named as a Christian Science Monitor Best Book of 2002, Ethical Ambition is now available in paperback. As one of America's most influential law professors, Derrick Bell has spent a lifetime helping students struggling to maintain a sense of integrity in the face of an overwhelming pressure to succeed at any price. The result of a meditation on Bell's own achievements, Ethical Ambition is a deeply affecting, uplifting, and thoughtful work that not only challenges us to face some of the most difficult questions that life presents, but also dares to offer solutions.

Derrick Bell teaches at the New York University School of Law. He is is the author of several previous books, including the bestselling Faces at the Bottom of the Well.

As one of the country's most influential law professors, Bell has spent a lifetime helping students struggling to maintain a sense of integrity in the face of an overwhelming pressure to succeed at any price. Frequently asked how he managed to be so extraordinarily successful while never giving up the fight for justice and equality, Bell decided to spend his seventieth year writing a book of insight and guidance. The result, Ethical Ambition, is a series of meditations that not only challenges us to face some of the most difficult questions that life presents, but dares to offer some solutions.

Using incidents from his own life, Bell also looks to literature, history, and contemporary society for other figures who have refused to compromise their beliefs. In chapters that explore passion, faith courage, inspiration, humility, and relationships, Ethical Ambition addresses the most fundamental issues of life.

"Ethical Ambition is an immensely stirring work that speaks directly to the daunting challenge faced by thousands of people who are torn between the dictates of their conscience and the practical realities of a remorselessly and often brutally competitive society. Seldom has the self-sustaining passion of a life lived boldly, but with self-examining humility, been so courageously and honestly conveyed. A generation thirsting for a life of meaning in an age of market-driven anomie will be profoundly grateful to the author for the lessons he has drawn out of a long career of activist integrity within the ever-uncompleted work of justice."Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities

"Ethical Ambition is an immensely stirring work that speaks directly to the daunting challenge faced by thousands of people who are torn between the dictates of their conscience and the practical realities of a remorselessly and often brutally competitive society. Seldom has the self-sustaining passion of a life lived boldly, but with self-examining humility, been so courageously and honestly conveyed. A generation thirsting for a life of meaning in an age of market-driven anomie will be profoundly grateful to the author for the lessons he has drawn out of a long career of activist integrity within the ever-uncompleted work of justice."Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities

"Bell's book eloquently updates the ethical recipe for the age of the corporate rat race."The Baltimore Sun

"Ethical Ambition is a story well worth hearing as an antidote to the evening news."The Christian Science Monitor

"Bell shows us that being successful need not mean being unprincipled."St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Bell has clearly earned the right to give the rest of us some advice. The voice that emerges from the pages of Ethical Ambition is not that of a preacher in vengeance-is-mine mode, but of a kindly man who has seen a thing or two and simply wants to pass on the benefit of his experience . . . One has the sense of being led by a wise teacher through lessons well worth revisiting. In Ethical Ambition, Bell has written a useful, thought-provoking, and timely book."Black Issues Book Review

"Derrick Bell's Ethical Ambition carefully lays out the possibility of both being successful and living by one's core values, one's ethical convictions. Bell is the ultimate teacher, a mentor to all of us."Anna Deavere Smith, actor and playwright

"Derrick Bell is one of the great race men in America, but his intellectual range, moral passion, and the literary gifts transcend the chains of any one people and belong to us all. He is a gift to the nation, and so too are all his works. His voice is a clear trumpet amidst the noise."Peter J. Gomes, minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard and author of The Good Book and The Good Life

"Derrick Bell's Ethical Ambition is a concise, beautifully written guide to the true good life, written by a man of true principles and morals."James McBride, author of The Color of Water and Miracle at St. Anna

"Ethical Ambition moved me to tears and then to action. Derrick Bell writes with passion and beautyrarely the gift of one so scholarly. This new work is the treasure I've been waiting for."Susan L. Taylor, editorial director, Essence magazine, and author of In the Spirit

"Ethical Ambition is an inspirational Baedeker, a guide to translating one's convictions into action in everyday life, and a reminder not to mistake athletic or self-centered risk-taking with true courage. If everyone could live as ethically and passionately as Derrick Bell, humanity would take an evolutionary leap forward."Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America and Getting Over Getting Older

"Bell shares his experiences of living an ethical life in the crucible of conflict, discrimination and protest. Bell notably walked away from a tenured position at Harvard Law School to protest the lack of minority women faculty members (he is now a visiting professor at NYU). When many asked how he could give up such a successful position, Bell responded that material success could not satisfy his desire to succeed ethically by pointing out the inequities of the system. Bell contends that religious faith and his religious community have provided the foundations for his desire to live an ethical life, and he urges those who would live with moral integrity to explore a variety of faiths. He stresses the importance of commitment in relationships, as well as the necessity of humility in serving others. Finally, he discusses a series of 'ethical inspirations' ranging from Martin Luther King Jr. and Paul Robeson to Medgar Evers and Daniel Ellsberg. Bell's noble aspirations to lead a life of ethical ambition may inspire others."Publishers Weekly

Named as a Christian Science Monitor Best Book of 2002, Ethical Ambition is now available in paperback. As one of America's most influential law professors, Derrick Bell has spent a lifetime helping students struggling to maintain a sense of integrity in the face of an overwhelming pressure to succeed at any price. The result of a meditation on Bell's own achievements, Ethical Ambition is a deeply affecting, uplifting, and thoughtful work that not only challenges us to face some of the most difficult questions that life presents, but also dares to offer solutions.

Derrick Bell is one of the most highly respected constitutional law scholars practicing today. He teaches at the New York University School of Law, and is the author of seven previous books, including The New York Times bestseller Faces at the Bottom of the Well.