A Natural History of Human Emotions - Softcover

Using Charles Darwin's survey of emotions as a starting point, Stuart Walton's A Natural History of Human Emotions examines the history of each of our core emotions--fear, anger, disgust, sadness, jealousy, contempt, shame, embarrassment, surprise, and happiness--and how these emotions have influenced both cultural and social history. We learn that primitive fear served as the engine of religious belief, while a desire for happiness led to humankind's first musings on achieving a perfect utopia. Challenging the notion that human emotion has remained constant, A Natural History of Human Emotions explains why, in the last 250 years, society has changed its unwritten rules for what can be expressed in public and in private. Like An Intimate History of Humanity and Near a Thousand Tables, Walton's A Natural History of Human Emotions is a provocative examination of human feelings and a fascinating take on how emotions have shaped our past.

Why does a tribal member in Papua, New Guinea, when shown a picture of a scowling Caucasian face, recognize the feeling expressed as anger? While the many details of our lives, from the way we dress to what we eat, vary greatly across geographic distances, all humans are born with the same basic templates that allow us to identify and react to human emotion. Using Charles Darwin's survey of emotions as a starting point, Stuart Walton's "A Natural History of Human Emotions" examines the history of each of our core emotions -- fear, anger, disgust, sadness, jealousy, contempt, shame, embarrassment, surprise, and happiness -- and how these emotions have influenced both cultural and social history. We learn that primitive fear served as the engine of religious belief, while a desire for happiness led to humankind's first musings on achieving a perfect utopia. "A Natural History of Human Emotions" is a provocative examination of human feelings and a fascinating take on how emotions have shaped our past.