A Human History Of Emotion

• Dr Richard Firth-Godbehere is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on disgust and emotions, and currently an Affiliated Research Scholar with The Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University of London.  His award-winning interdisciplinary research walks the line between history, psychology, linguistics, and futurism. How have our emotions shaped the course of human history?
And how have our experience and understanding of emotions evolved 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.
In A Human History of Emotion, Richard Firth-Godbehere takes readers on a fascinating and wideranging 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, Britain, and beyond.
Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, art and religious history, 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