A Natural History of Human Emotions

Stuart Walton

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781555848835
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Emotions in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

A "fresh and entertaining" survey of the human emotional landscape—and how it has shifted over the centuries ( Kirkus Reviews ). 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.

INDEX

Abbas, Ali xx–xxi

Abbott, Gilbert 109

Abel 174–7

Abraham 14, 177, 377–8

Adam 21, 174, 244, 245, 253, 362

Adorno, Theodor 28, 132, 139–40, 324, 326

Aesthetic Theory 331

Minima Moralia 323

Negative Dialectics 27

Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max: Dialectic of Enlightenment 9

Adverts 235

Aelian 161

Aeschylus 143

Oresteia trilogy 148

Aesop Fables: ‘The Fox and the Lion’ 230–31

afterlife 9, 10

aggression therapy 74–5

Air Rage 81

Alaric 363

Albert, Prince Consort 96, 165–6, 321

Alda, Alan 342, 343

Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool 106

Alexander the Great 95, 212

Alexander III, Pope 266

Allen, Woody 341, 342–3

Allende, Salvador 24

Altamira 6

altruism 228–9

Amritsar massacre 51

amyl nitrite 287

anaesthesia 108–110

anagnorisis 339

anatomy 103–8

Andersen, Hans Christian 28

The Emperor’s New Suit of Clothes 243–4

Andrew, St 267

anger

Darwin’s physical indicators 43

defined 43

I am angered 73–84

I enrage 60–72

one of Darwin’s basic emotions xvi

public 50–52

suppression of 52–4, 57, 74

to be angry 45–59

Anger, Kenneth 300, 301–2

Hollywood Babylon series 391

anger management therapy 46

Anglican Church 258

Angst 10

Angyal, Andras 96–7

anhedonia 238

animal experimentation 106

animal sacrifice 6

Anselm, St 11, 12, 13

anti—nuclear movement 70–71

anxiety 334

appetites, the 99

arachibutyrophobia 41–2

Arendt, Hannah: The Human Condition xii

Argyle, Duke of 292, 296, 297

Aristophanes 146, 340

Aristotle 95, 112, 185, 339

Poetics 151, 159, 273, 338

Politics 151

Armstrong, J...