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How the Way We Feel Built the World We Know
by Richard Firth-Godbehere
A sweeping exploration of the ways in which emotions shaped the course of human history, and how our experience and understanding of emotions have evolved along with us.
We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important moments in our history had little to do with cold, hard facts and a lot to do with feelings. Events ranging from the origins of philosophy to the birth of the world's major religions, the fall of Rome, the Scientific Revolution, and some of the bloodiest wars that humanity has ever experienced can't be properly understood without understanding emotions.
Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, art, and religious history, Richard Firth-Godbehere takes readers on a fascinating and wide ranging tour of the central and often under-appreciated role emotions have played in human societies around the world and throughout history—from Ancient Greece to Gambia, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, the United States, and beyond.
A Human History of Emotion vividly illustrates how our understanding and experience of emotions has changed over time, and how our beliefs about feelings—and our feelings themselves—profoundly shaped us and the world we inhabit.
"Plenty of scholars seem to have read everything on their chosen subjects, but it's rare to find one who can convert this massive database into lucid, captivating prose. Paul Johnson and Yuval Noah Harari do it; Firth-Godbehere is another. Occasionally heavy reading that is well worth the effort." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A]ccessible...While [Firth-Godbehere's] survey leaves open the question of how the way humans understand and express emotions 'built the world we know,' it's nonetheless a well-written, fact-filled global tour. Readers interested in a history of emotional responses will find this a good place to start." - Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating look at the profound ways in which the harnessing of human emotions has shaped world-wide history and culture. Eye-opening and thought-provoking!" - Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain
"Emotions are a much bigger part of the experience of being human than most people would ever realize. If you want to know more about emotions and how we arrived at our understanding of them, this book is exactly what you need." - Dean Burnett, author of Happy Brain
"Reading The Human History of Emotion is like watching a familiar film turned upside down. Take Richard Firth-Godbehere's hand and let him walk you down a strange path through some new and familiar historical landscapes. I very much enjoyed having my preconceptions challenged, and any book so comprehensive that it starts with Socrates and ends with emojis deserves a place on my bookshelf." - Iszi Lawrence, author and co-host of Making History
This information about A Human History of Emotion was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Richard Firth-Godbehere, PhD, one of the world's leading experts on disgust and emotions, is an independent researcher and consultant in the history, language, science and philosophy of emotions, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, Queen Mary University of London. He received a first-class degree from the University of London, during which time he won two awards for academic excellence, alongside a Masters (MPhil) from the University of Cambridge and a PhD From Queen Mary, University of London, where he was a Wellcome Trust Scholar.
His award-winning interdisciplinary research walks the line between history, psychology, linguistics, and futurism. He examines how understandings of emotions change over time and how these changes can influence the wider world.
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