ISBN: HB: 9780300221428

Yale University Press

May 2020

224 pp.

20,9x13,9 cm

13 colour illus.

HB:
£22.50
QTY:

Categories:

Anger

The Conflicted History of an Emotion

All of us think we know when we are angry, and we are sure we can recognize anger in others as well. But this is only superficially true. We see anger through lenses colored by what we know, experience, and learn.

Barbara H. Rosenwein traces our many conflicting ideas about and expressions of anger, taking the story from the Buddha to our own time, from anger's complete rejection to its warm reception. Rosenwein explores how anger has been characterized by gender and race, why it has been tied to violence and how that is often a false connection, how it has figured among the seven deadly sins and yet is considered a virtue, and how its interpretation, once largely the preserve of philosophers and theologians, has been gradually handed over to scientists – with very mixed results. Rosenwein shows that the history of anger can help us grapple with it today.

About the author

Barbara H. Rosenwein is professor emerita at Loyola University Chicago. She is the author of numerous books, including "Anger's Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages" and "Generations of Feeling: A History of Emotions, 600-1700".