The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions

Offers a theory that explains the impact of emotions on historical change.

Booknews

Attesting to revolutions in thinking about emotions in cognitive psychology; anthropology; and literary criticism, Reddy (Duke U.) draws on each field to decipher the meaning of emotions, their relation to cognition, and often overlooked social and political implications. The author critiques poststructuralist theories of emotion, then applies the navigating emotion metaphor to the history of sentimentalism and Romanticism in pre- and post-Revolution 18th- 19th century France, and to studies of 46 civil cases from judicial archives of that period. Details on sampled cases are appended. French passages are translated by the author. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

William M. Reddy is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fulbright Fellow, a Fellow of the National Humanities Centre, and a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He is the author of three previous books: The Invisible Code: Honor and Sentiment in Postrevolutionary France, 1815-1848 (University of California Press, 1987); Money and Liberty in Modern Europe: A Critique of Historical Understanding (Cambridge University Press, 1987); The Rise of Market Culture: The Textile Trade and French Society, 1750-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1984).