This chapter interrogates the interplay between sociocultural circumstances and ideas/behavior in relation to wisdom. Understanding the wide variety of present-day approaches to wisdom demands, first, exploring the history of this interplay; contemporary versions of wisdom cannot be envisaged separately from their genesis and the sorts of struggle that gave rise to them. We therefore explore major types of wisdom in antiquity that fundamentally influenced subsequent cultures, and were in turn transformed by them. The second part of the chapter examines contemporary ethnographic and hermeneutic efforts to illuminate interrelations between wisdom and culture that display both affinities and contrasts with those just examined, for example wisdom in rural or non-Western settings, or in environmental debate. Interpretations of wisdom are prone to controversial tensions that develop through time and change in situ; not all are mutually compatible or even desirable, but many mirror human attempts to live meaningful and humane lives.