Happiness: A History [Hardcover]

Darrin M. McMahon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 28, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0871138867 | ISBN-13: 978-0871138866 | Edition: First Edition

Darrin M. McMahon's sweeping new book, chronicling the evolution of happiness over two thousand years of Western culture and thought, argues that our modern belief in happiness — that happiness is a natural right — is a relatively recent development. It is a product of a dramatic revolution in human expectations carried out since the eighteenth century. Central to the development of Christianity, ideas of happiness assumed their modern form during the Enlightenment, when men and women were first introduced to the novel prospect that they could — in fact should — be happy in this life as opposed to the hereafter. Ultimately, the Enlightenment's recognition of happiness as a motivating ideal led to its consecration in the Declaration of Independence and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man. McMahon follows this great pursuit through to the present day, showing how our modern search for happiness continues to generate new forms of pleasure, but also, paradoxically, new forms of pain. In the tradition of works by Peter Gay and Simon Schama, Happiness draws on numerous sources, including art and architecture, poetry and scripture, music and theology, literature and myth to offer a sweeping intellectual history of man's most elusive yet coveted goal.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Before the contemporary onslaught of therapeutic treatments and self-help guidance, the very idea of happiness in this life was virtually unknown. In this eminently readable work, McMahon (Enemies of Enlightenment) looks back through 2,000 years of thought, searching for evidence of how our contemporary obsession came to be. From the tragic plays of ancient Greece to the inflammatory rhetoric of Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, McMahon delves deeply into the rich trove of texts that elucidate and confirm the development of Western notions of this elusive ideal. In one particularly rousing section, he highlights the breakthrough thinking of German theologian and religious revolutionary Martin Luther. Locked in self-imposed exile in the Augustine Black Monastery in Wittenberg, Luther struggled with a God who punished sinners, then realized that man is "justified—made just, not punished with justice..." and that this life was one to be lived, that man must "drink more, engage in sports and recreation, aye, even sin a little" in order to be happy. Throughout McMahon leads the reader with strong, clear thinking, laying out his ideas with grace, both challenging and entertaining us in equal measure.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Today bookstore shelves are stocked with encyclopedia titles like Salt, Zero, The Pencil, Cod, Chocolate, and One Good Turn (A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw). Happiness follows in suit but delivers a surprisingly rounded view of its subject. True to his subtitle, McMahon is more interested in cataloging the manifold interpretations of his slippery subject than in delivering a decisive conclusion of what it should be. A few critics wanted some answers; instead, McMahon raises many questions. Certainly, this professor of history at Florida State University presents some thinly veiled opinions, but the success of the book is founded on its encyclopedic and accessible presentation of this most evasive idea.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (November 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871138867
• ISBN-13: 978-0871138866
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #881,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

134 of 137 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched, well written January 6, 2006

By sb-lynn TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I just finished reading Happiness: A History. This was a very interesting read, and a very informative one.

In summary, McMahon takes us on a philosophical review of happiness, starting with Socrates, and taking us up to modern times. Along the way, we read the opinions of such notable figures as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Napolean, Locke, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Hume, Mill, Weber, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud...to name a few.

I particularly liked the last part of the book, with McMahon pointing out the relevance of Huxley's Brave New World in our own world today. We are a culture that feels happiness is our right, and the search for it extends to recent advances in pharmacology.

In reading this book you will learn about all the various theories and definitions of "happiness," and how each era dealt with it differently. This book is very well researched and presented.

I do have to tell you, Happiness: A History, can be pretty depressing, and there are many parts of the book that are downright bleak. (In an existential kind of way, at least for me.)

Still, highly recommended for those interested in the subject, and for anyone who wants to get a good overview of philosophy through the ages.

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Deft, clear, illuminating July 22, 2006

By Bob Fancher

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Everyone wants to be happy, right? Of course. But what, exactly, does it mean to say that?

The concept, "happiness," means drastically different things to different people. McMahon takes us on a grand tour of how the concept has fluctuated and functioned in Western cultures. If you read this book thoughtfully, the notion that "Everyone wants to be happy" becomes less a platitude and more a conundrum.

If you're well educated in Western history, you won't find a lot of new ideas here--but you will find what you already know reorganized and, in the process, illuminated. The stuff you already know is supplemented by minor historical figures and movements you've probably not had occasion to encounter before. The result is thought-provoking.

My two complaints are about the last chapter.

First, McMahon takes a surprisingly uncritical view of contemporary psychiatric and psychological notions--and doesn't even understand them. In fact--as a substantial body of careful scholarship has shown--notions of mental health owe a great deal to the Enlightenment ideology that McMahon had already explained very nicely before getting to this chapter. But suddenly, he accepts mental health as more or less "sui generis," without historical or cultural influences.

And sadly, he often doesn't even understand the psychological literature he cites. For instance, he refers to studies which he interprets as showing that happiness "is [x]% genetic." But that's not what those studies say, or claim to say. They say, rather, that [x]% of the variance (which is a statistical construct, not a trait) among a population (not a characteristic of individuals) is accounted for by genetics--which is a drastically different notion.... I was surprised to see McMahon lacking even an elementary understanding of the concept of a heritability quotient, yet using the concept so prominently.

Second, while it may be unfair to expect a historian to shed light on gigantic contemporary problems, McMahon's disquisition on the importance of "meaningfulness" to satisfying lives comes off as unanchored and unhelpful, precisely because he doesn't have anything useful to say about why it's so hard to find meaning in one's life in post-Enlightenment society and what to do about it. I finished this book thinking, "Well, if McMahon's right, the West is just done-for, then. We've eaten our own young--undermined the conditions for meaningful lives, hence for satisfying lives."

Still, the historical analysis, and the deft presentation of massive amounts of material, are well worth your time. And from the cover picture, it looks like McMahon's a youngster--so I don't guess we should expect him to point the way for Western culture to escape its contradictions quite yet in his career! Read more ›

45 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It may make you more happy to know more about the history of happiness February 23, 2006

By Shalom Freedman HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

One basic reason for reading a book about 'The History of Happiness' is to understand what exactly it is that will make us happy. In other words we might read the book as a kind of how- to- do-it book but one in which we have to figure out the 'principles ' of how to do it by ourselves.

I think it is natural and obvious to most people in our world and time that this subject, our own personal happiness, is one of great importance and one we certainly should be most concerned with.

But one of the first findings of this study is that our attitude about happiness which comes so natural to us is not an 'eternal given' is not the way most people felt most of the time throughout history. They were worried more about other things, like surviving, like getting enough food to do it.

As McMahon sees it the modern conception of individual pursuit of happiness began with the Enlightentment in the 17th and 18th centuries. So the Declaration of Independence declares that it is our right to "pursue life, liberty and happiness." This contrasts sharply with the view of the ancient Greeks and Romans who said " that no man can be considered happy until after death'i.e. It is the whole story of a person's life which determines whether they are 'happy ' or 'not'.

In contrast I think of many expressions in the Jewish tradition beginning with Biblical ones in which 'happiness' is connected with 'sitting in the house of the Lord' or with 'trusting in God' and certainly with 'walking in the way of God." I think that is how in the Jewish religious conception the idea of happiness is bound up with doing our duty to others. And that the idea then of pursuing a private happiness apart from others would seem to make little sense.... Here I think of the dictum taught me in my childhood by my grandmother ( The good which we put into the life of others, comes back into our own)In other words happiness is less an individual achievement than it is a way of relating to others.

Considering this kind of focus on the ethical life as the way to happiness, I see that McMahon in focusing on 'individual happiness'from the Enlightentment is also most likely connecting the concept of Happiness' development with an increasing secularization, an individualization.

Nonetheless in one section of the work he is cautionary in regard to the focus placed on drug- induced happiness. He seems to side with Leon Kass' dictum that medical treatments are advisable for special sufferings, but that we should not be seeking to eliminate the ups and downs of everyday life.

I would also point out that while most of us tend to absolutize the good of happiness in relation to ourselves, it is clear that happiness, and certainly pleasure are not in and of themselves always good. For after all there are 'evil people' who take pleasure in making others unhappy.

This brings me back to the basic ethical idea that perhaps the greatest happiness we can have is in making others happy, or sharing that happiness with others.

I am sorry that this review has gone so far away from the book, but if any reader is still with me I would like just to share two thoughts about happiness. Once again it is being good doing good for others- making others happy- loving and being loved which are certainly one source of great happiness and good.

Another point that researches of happiness make. It is when we are absorbed in the work or activity which we most care for that we often feel most happy.

In conclusion. This is by all accounts a tremendously rich and interesting work .

Reading it should be a source of enjoyment( perhaps even happiness) to those who do. Read more ›

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read and lots of interesting material June 2, 2006

By A.Bidou

Format:Hardcover

Happiness: A History is a beautiful book for people who enjoy reading. It is not a self-help manual, so if you are looking for one simple message or point, then this is not your book. Instead, McMahon offers a great many insights, showing how and why earthly happiness began to replace otherwordly salvation in the eighteenth century, and why happiness has since become our modern God. McMahon tells this story by beginning with the ancient Greeks and then moving forward to the present. Along the way he gives the reader a short course in the history of Western Civilization by looking at what great writers and artists and philosophers had to say on the subject of happiness, and pointing out things like the relationship between happiness and luck and why the pursuit of happiness can often be counter-productive. The writing is clear, and the book as a whole is insightful, often poignant and funny. It can be challenging in places, but it repays the effort, and then some. I loved it.