Alchemy Rory Sutherland Pdf May 2026

Sutherland’s central argument is that the "Enlightenment" (logic, reason, efficiency) gave us science, but it took away magic. He posits that:

Alchemy is a book you need to annotate. You will want to underline the paradoxes ("Don't solve the problem; change the meaning of the problem"). A used paperback on AbeBooks or ThriftBooks costs less than a movie ticket. alchemy rory sutherland pdf

Published in 2019 (UK title: Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense), this book is Rory Sutherland’s magnum opus. Sutherland is the Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy UK, a legendary figure in advertising, and the host of the popular podcast The Spectator’s “The Wiki Man.” A used paperback on AbeBooks or ThriftBooks costs

Unlike traditional business books that worship data and spreadsheets, Alchemy argues that the best solutions to human problems are often "psychologically absurd." Sutherland uses behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, and decades of advertising war stories to prove that logic is overrated. a legendary figure in advertising