The Routledge History of Happiness by Barclay, Katie; McMahon, Darrin; Stearns, Peter N.;

Rövid leírás:

Unmatched in originality, breadth, and scope, The Routledge History of Happiness features chapters that explore the history, anthropology, and psychology of happiness across the globe.

Hosszú leírás:

Unmatched in originality, breadth, and scope, The Routledge History of Happiness features chapters that explore the history, anthropology, and psychology of happiness across the globe.

Through a chronological approach that ranges from the Classical and Postclassical to the twenty-first century, this volume balances intellectual-history treatments and wider efforts to deal with relevant popular culture and experience, including consumerism. It explores how and why the history of happiness has emerged in recent decades, as well as psychological and social science approaches to happiness, with a history of how relevant psychological research has unfolded. Chapters examine early cultural traditions concerning happiness, including material on Buddhist and Chinese traditions, and how they continue to influence ideas about happiness in the present day. Overall, each section emphasises wide geographical coverage, with particular attention paid to East Asia, Latin America, Europe, Russia, and Africa.

The Routledge History of Happiness is of great use to all undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in the global history of emotions.

‘In an age when happiness is the subject of hundreds of self-help books, global surveys, and government initiatives, The Routledge History of Happiness is an essential read. It brings together leading historians of the emotions to address how ideas and experiences of happiness have changed over time and varied across the globe. The volume’s scope is wide, with perspectives on happiness and the well-lived life in childhood and old age, in the ancient Greco-Roman world and in modern Bhutan, in consumer contexts, and in family rituals. The book offers an all too rare comparative view of the subject, addressing differences and similarities across time, culture, and the life course. Brilliantly conceived and carefully curated, this volume is an important contribution to happiness studies and the history of emotions and psychology.’

Susan Matt, Weber State University, USA

'The Routledge History of Happiness is a delightfully deep and detailed exploration of one of the key drivers of individual and collective human life across time and culture. Readers interested in more than the superficial treatment this topic often receives will be grateful for—and fascinated by—this volume’s nuanced chapters, which carefully cover ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary viewpoints, including perspectives from the East as well as the West, and from the Global South and well as the Global North. This insightful volume demonstrates the essential role the humanities have to play in the study and cultivation of human flourishing, and as such, is a valued contribution to the new field of the Positive Humanities.'

James O. Pawelski, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Tartalomjegyzék:

1. A History of Happiness: an Introduction  Part One: Continuity and Change  2. Buddhism and Happiness: A Modern Romance or Tale as Old as Time?  3. Happiness and Grieving Well: Family Bonds and Mourning Practices in China  4. The Transition from Early to Modern Happiness in Bhutan  5. Happiness in Old Age: A Very Brief History of a Complex Topic  Part Two: Classical and Postclassical  6. Happiness in the Classical Greco-Roman World  7. Qur’anic Happiness: With Remarks on Late Antique Fear of God, Asceticism, and Emotions as Moral Understanding  8. Medieval Happiness Reconsidered: The Unstable Human Heart in This World and the Next  Part Three: Early Modern  9. Historicizing Happiness Management in the Joseon Korean Kingdom  10. Family, Care and the Affective Universe of Novohispanic Baroque Happiness: The Chiaroscuros of an Enduring Tradition  11. Shakespeare’s Unhappiness Archive and the Early Modern Social  12. Western Laughter and Happiness in Transition  Part Four: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries  13. Happiness and the Enlightenment  14. Happiness and Industrialization: Western Society in the Nineteenth Century  15. Definitions of Happiness in Ottoman Syria: Hegemonic and Subordinate Voices during the Nineteenth Century  16. Who Can be Happy in Russia?  Part Five:Twentieth Century  17.   “We Strive to Make the People a Little Happier Every Day.” Political Discourse and Practices of Happiness in Brazil and Argentina in Mid-Twentieth Century  18. Happiness and the Origins of Modern Consumerism  19. The Rise of Positive Psychology  20. Politics and Happiness, an Unhappy Inheritance: Liberal Democracies and the Return of Fascist Populism  Part Six: Twenty-first Century  21. How to be Happy in Botswana  22. Happy Japan: An Essay  23. In Pursuit of the Good Life: Young Men’s Cultivation of Enjoyment in Niger  Part Seven: Interdisciplinary Contexts  24. The History of Happiness in Academic Psychology  25.  Decades of Scientific Research on Human Happiness: Questions, Findings, and Urgent Future Directions  26. Contemporary Happiness Efforts  27. Epilogue: Joy’s Futures