"[An } erudite immensely entertaining book...Mount makes for a delightful guide" -- Literary
Review A sweeping tour of emotion and culture that spans centuries from renowned author and
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 vivid snapshots masterly storytelling and strange and wonderful historical anecdotes.
Revealing all the weird and wonderful 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.
