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Beschreibung

"[An } erudite, immensely entertaining book...Mount makes for a delightful guide" -- Literary Review

From troubadours to Twitter: a thousand years of feelings, fads, and furious sentiment, from renowned essayist Ferdinand Mount.

Whatever we think we feel, you can be sure that the past has had a part to play in it. In Soft, Ferdinand Mount tells the millennium-long history of emotion through delightful snapshots, often mischievous storytelling and a masterly command of history.

Revealing all the ways people in the past expressed their grief and joy, Mount explores the shifting importance societies have placed on empathy for the misfortunes of others. Each seismic moment, Mount argues, from the French Revolution to Civil Rights, has had a corresponding sentimental revolution that has fuelled great political turning points and come to define human civilization.

But during this long history, powerful feelings have frequently come under attack. No one wants to be accused of being sentimental; its detractors call it soppy, effeminate and populist - the stuff of soap operas and pop songs. The Reformation tried to stamp out excessive emotion, the Victorians resolutely maintained their stiff upper lips and no one loathed sentimentality more than the modernists - and yet, today, Mount argues it is not the stoics who are ruling the roost: we are living in an age of emotion.

From the Occitan poets of the 12th century to Paul McCartney' songs, and modern debates around woke, this is a witty insight into the story of emotions and the way they have swayed human history.

"[An } erudite, immensely entertaining book...Mount makes for a delightful guide" -- Literary Review

From troubadours to Twitter: a thousand years of feelings, fads, and furious sentiment, from renowned essayist Ferdinand Mount.

Whatever we think we feel, you can be sure that the past has had a part to play in it. In Soft, Ferdinand Mount tells the millennium-long history of emotion through delightful snapshots, often mischievous storytelling and a masterly command of history.

Revealing all the ways people in the past expressed their grief and joy, Mount explores the shifting importance societies have placed on empathy for the misfortunes of others. Each seismic moment, Mount argues, from the French Revolution to Civil Rights, has had a corresponding sentimental revolution that has fuelled great political turning points and come to define human civilization.

But during this long history, powerful feelings have frequently come under attack. No one wants to be accused of being sentimental; its detractors call it soppy, effeminate and populist - the stuff of soap operas and pop songs. The Reformation tried to stamp out excessive emotion, the Victorians resolutely maintained their stiff upper lips and no one loathed sentimentality more than the modernists - and yet, today, Mount argues it is not the stoics who are ruling the roost: we are living in an age of emotion.

From the Occitan poets of the 12th century to Paul McCartney' songs, and modern debates around woke, this is a witty insight into the story of emotions and the way they have swayed human history.

Über den Autor
Ferdinand Mount is a novelist, essayist and former editor of the Times Literary Supplement from 1991 to 2002. As a political figure, he was head of the Number Ten Policy Unit. As a journalist, he has contributed regular columns to The Spectator, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times. He is the author of several books, including Of Love and Asthma (part of his six-volume series A Chronicle of Modern Twilight) which won the Hawthornden Prize in 1992, Making Nice and The Pentecost Papers. He lives in North London with his family.
Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: The Unforgivable Sin
CHAPTER ONE: The First Sentimental Revolution
Inventing Love - Passionate about the Passion - This Vale of Tears - The Power of Soft
CHAPTER TWO: The New Stony Age
A Lament for Walsingham - The Dowsing Rod - Chilling with Michelangelo
CHAPTER THREE: The Second Sentimental Revolution
The Man Who Invented Me Too - Love Divine, All Loves Excelling - The Continental Version - The Dawn of Toleration - The
Three Scottish Sympathizers - Movers, Shakers and Quakers
CHAPTER FOUR: Manliness Rules OK
Reacting into Reaction - Women Can Be Manly, Too - The Dry Imperial Eye
CHAPTER FIVE: Mr Popular Sentiment
The Case of Charles Dickens - Uncle Tom and Aunt Phillis - Victor Hugo, Hélas!
CHAPTER SIX: The Great Estranging
The Dilemma of The Doctor - On or About December 1910 - The Revolt Against the Masses
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Third Sentimental Revolution
1963 and All That - It's a Private Matter - It's a Crime to Discriminate - Murdered for a Song - Tears on the Turf - 6 September 1997
Picture Credits and Permissions
Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Index

Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2025
Fachbereich: Allgemeines
Genre: Geschichte, Importe
Rubrik: Geisteswissenschaften
Thema: Lexika
Medium: Buch
ISBN-13: 9781399421881
ISBN-10: 1399421883
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Gebunden
Autor: Mount, Ferdinand
Hersteller: Bloomsbury UK
Bloomsbury Continuum
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, D-36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr@libri.de
Maße: 242 x 157 x 31 mm
Von/Mit: Ferdinand Mount
Erscheinungsdatum: 11.09.2025
Gewicht: 0,52 kg
Artikel-ID: 133938268

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