Think You Know How To Pursue Happiness? Think Again. | Caroline Winterer | TEDxStanford

The Declaration of Independence promises the unalienable right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” but Stanford historian Caroline Winterer says the pursuit of happiness has lead us astray. You may be surprised to learn that what made us happy then can tell us a lot about how to be happy today. Caroline Winterer is Professor of American History and Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, where she is also Director of the Stanford Humanities Center. She studies how people in the past understood their world. Her most recent book is American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (Yale University Press, 2016). She received an American Ingenuity Award from the Smithsonian Institution for mapping the social network of Benjamin Franklin. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx