The History of Emotions Audiobook By Thomas Dixon cover art

The History of Emotions

A Very Short Introduction

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The History of Emotions

By: Thomas Dixon
Narrated by: Mike Cooper
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $11.17

Buy for $11.17

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Emotions are complex mental states that resist reduction. They are visceral reactions but also beliefs about the world. They are spontaneous outbursts but also culturally learned performances. And just as our emotions in any given moment display this complex structure, so their history is plural rather than singular. The history of emotions is where the history of ideas meets the history of the body, and where the history of subjectivity meets social and cultural history.

In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas Dixon traces the historical ancestries of feelings ranging from sorrow, melancholy, rage, and terror to cheerfulness, enthusiasm, sympathy, and love. The picture that emerges is a complex one, showing how the states we group together today as "the emotions" are the product of long and varied historical changes in language, culture, beliefs, and ways of life.

With examples from ancient, medieval, and modern cultures, this Very Short Introduction sheds new light on our emotions in the present, by looking at what historians can tell us about their past. Dixon explains the key ideas of historians of emotions as they have developed in conversation with psychology and psychiatry, with attention paid especially to ideas about basic emotions, psychological construction, and affect theory.

©2023 Thomas Dixon (P)2023 Tantor
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup
All stars
Most relevant  
… but marred by silly attacks on a straw man version of basic emotion theory. Dixon studies the way people historically talk about emotion, not emotion itself, and there’s obviously no tension between that approach and study of the physical reality of internal motivational states. A good tenth of a very short book is wasted on dumb quibbling about terminology.

Mostly insightful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.