Table of Contents

Preface; Part I. What are Emotions?: 1. Answers from cognitive psychology; 2. Answers from anthropology; 3. Emotional expression as a type of speech act; 4. Emotional liberty; Part II. Emotions in History: France 1700–1850: 5. The flowering of sentimentalism (1700–89); 6. Sentimentalism in the making of the French Revolution (1789–1815); 7. Liberal reason, romantic passions (1815–48); 8. Personal destinies: case material of the early nineteenth century; Conclusion; Appendix A: detailed review of anomalous cases from the Gazette des Tribunaux sample; Appendix B: detailed review of anomalous cases from the Tribunal Civil de Versailles sample; References; Index.

Promotional Information

Offers a theory that explains the impact of emotions on historical change.

About the Author

William M. Reddy is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fulbright Fellow, a Fellow of the National Humanities Centre, and a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He is the author of three previous books: The Invisible Code: Honor and Sentiment in Postrevolutionary France, 1815–1848 (University of California Press, 1987); Money and Liberty in Modern Europe: A Critique of Historical Understanding (Cambridge University Press, 1987); The Rise of Market Culture: The Textile Trade and French Society, 1750–1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Reviews

'Brilliant and wonderful: this is a book of profound scholarship that will become central to the fast growing interdisciplinary interest in emotion. Reddy bridges psychology, anthropology and history to explore the fascinating idea that emotion is the process that manages the concerns that are most intimate to humankind.' Keith Oatley, University of Toronto