Laozi: The Biography of an Uncertain Sage

100 Lives That Shaped the World · Episode 22

• Historical Biographies
• 42 min
• Ages 12–99
• 10 chapters

About this audiobook

A biography of Laozi that treats the Old Master as a traditional life, a composite textual voice, and a religious figure whose meanings changed across two millennia.

Why it's worth a listen

It turns uncertainty into the central lesson: traditions can shape history even when a founder's individual biography cannot be securely recovered.

A question to keep

What does it mean to tell the life of Laozi when the historical person may be inseparable from a layered text and a sacred tradition?

Based on the book by Emma's Library, published by Emma's Library

Chapters

1. The Sage Who Leaves No Trace
2. The Old Master Problem
3. A Text in Pieces
4. The Guodian Discovery
5. Dao and De
6. Wuwei and Government
7. Readers Make a Sage
8. Laozi in Religious Daoism
9. Translation and Global Reinvention
10. A Life Made by Reception