Intimate History of Humanity, An [Paperback]

Theodore Zeldin (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 1, 1995

A provocative work that explores the evolution of emotions and personal relationships through diverse cultures and time. "An intellectually dazzling view of our past and future."--Time magazine

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint Edition edition (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060926910
• ISBN-13: 978-0060926915
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > History
  • #54 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Movements > Humanism

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This groundbreaking book by an internationally renowned historian and prolific author is so wide-ranging in scope that categorizing the various issues and audiences it seeks to address would be difficult. Implicit in Zeldin's work is a challenge to traditional historians who have heretofore pigeonholed their accounts of the human past into discrete cubicles (social, economic, political history, etc.). By contrast, Zeldin attempts a history of human thoughts and feelings unfettered by considerations of historical epoch or culture. Each chapter focuses on a particular thought or feeling, such as toil, the art of conversation, voluntarism, compassion, attitudes on class and social status, and authority. To organize his ideas, Zeldin employs a masterful new technique. After introducing each chapter with a personal vignette based on interviews he has conducted with individuals musing on the meaning of some aspect of their lives, Zeldin traces changes or commonalities in that feeling across time and place. General readers will be inspired by this thought-provoking and immensely readable work.?Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., N.J.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Extraordinary and beautiful...the most exciting and ambitious work of non-fiction I have read in more than a decade" -- Maggie Gee Daily Telegraph "One of the year's most original and outstanding books...fascinating labyrinths of history and human experience, which he perceptively, intructively and absorbingly explores. This is a read to relish" Financial Times "Theodore Zeldin's all-embracing history of our feelings throughout the ages [is] brilliantly original and unsettling... His scope is dazzling... A seductive and unusually thought provoking book" Sunday Telegraph "Bubbling wit... Zeldin makes life exciting for the reader. It is like being on some careering fair-ground ride that whirls you from one limelit fragment of civilisation to the next at breakneck speed...gatecrashing all the cultures of the world" Spectator "It's the sort of book that will go on being famous long after we're all dead... If ever a volume deserved that overused ecomium "this book will change your life", it is this one" Oxford Today --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint Edition edition (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060926910
• ISBN-13: 978-0060926915
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > History
  • #54 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Movements > Humanism

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A History of How People Have Solved the Problem of Living January 18, 1999

By Jeffrey S. Bennion

Format:Paperback

Everyone who's interested in history honors those who have lived in the past, how they have come to unique solutions to solve their problems. We try to guard against what C.S. Lewis calls "chronological snobbery" -- the notion that just because we were born later, we necessarily are smarter and wiser than those who have gone before us.

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that the ancients had it right all along. And this book is a powerful antidote against chronological snobbery. Aside from being truly uplifting, it's encouraging to see how people have faced, and overcome, dilemmas similar to our own. To see the many ways they have solved those problems is fascinating and liberating.

My only regret is that this book has received far too little attention. The scope is so wide ranging, the range of fascinating tiny details so vast, that it's difficult to review, and impossible to summarize, at least with my paltry expository skills. So just read it! And spread the word!

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A history of everything November 27, 2001

By "benph"

Format:Paperback

I find it difficult to praise this book enough. It is definitely not just a book about history--it is more a book about philosophy and the human condition. I could say that this is a book about everything--or rather everything that deals with being human.

Even though it certainly is not a chronological story of human events, it examines many of the aspects of intrapersonal and interpersonal behavior we take for granted every day. He states himself, "But this book is not a summary of history: it has deliberately limited itself to finding lock that look as though they will not open, and to showing how they can be opened." The author, Theodore Zeldin, raises the question of what freedom really is, the history of conversation, loneliness, sex, dating, religion, and much more. He has interviewed people from all over the world to find commonalities and differences in the way we lead our lives. I think this is the kind of book that everyone can relate to and must be somewhat interested in as long as one cares about the human condition.

As the author states himself, "This book has tried to show how great a difference to the conduct of daily life the ability to alter the focus of one's perceptions can make. To be hospitable to the nuances of life, it is no use treating the mind as an automatic camera; only by composing one's picture and playing with light and shadow can one hope to see something interesting." This book is in the end optimistic and Zeldin believes that humanity is merely at the beginnings of worldwide hospitality and sharing and understanding of ideas.

Personally, this is the kind of reading I particularly enjoy--a compelling work that gets you thinking, a work which raises as many questions as it answers.... However, it is also an extremely well researched work (as evidenced by the notes at the end of each chapter) with all kinds of fascinating information on the side. He provides a comparison of different attitudes and philosophies of different cultures. It is like reading a book about behind the scenes of history. Instead of tracing the history of things like kings and battles, he traces the history behind more intangible concepts like the concept of romantic love and contentment. Overall, I cannot begin to describe the entire work here, nor do I feel obliged to. I would highly recommend that you read this book yourself to fully understand everything it is about.

In case you are interested, here is a listing of the chapters:
1. How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them
2. How men and women have slowly learned to have interesting conversations
3. How people searching for their roots are only beginning to look far and deep enough
4. How some people have acquired an immunity to loneliness
5. How new forms of love have been invented
6. Why there has been more progress in cooking than in sex
7. How the desire that men feel for women, and for other men, has altered through the centuries
8. How respect has become more desirable than power
9. How those who want neither to give orders nor to receive them can become intermediaries
10. How people have freed themselves from fear by finding new fears
11. How curiosity has become the key to freedom
12. Why it has become increasingly difficult to destroy one's enemies
13. How the art of escaping from one's troubles has developed, but not the art of knowing where to escape to
14. Why compassion has flowered even in stony ground
15. Why toleration has never been enough
16. Why even the privileged are often somewhat gloomy about life, even when they can have anything the consumer society offers, and even after sexual liberation
17. How travellers are becoming the largest nation in the world, and how they have learned not to see only what they are looking for
18. Why friendship between men and women has become so fragile
19. How even astrologers resist their destiny
20. Why people have not been able to find the time to lead several lives
21. Why fathers and their children are changing their minds about what they want from each other
22. Why the crisis in the family is only one stage in the evolution of generosity
23. How people choose a way of life, and how it does not wholly satisfy them
24. How humans become hospitable to each other
25. What becomes possible when soul-mates meet Read more ›

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic December 24, 1999

By Rochelle

Format:Paperback

This is a unique read... Not a novel, but equally engrossing; not a historical account, but namedrops events from history which most readers will probably be unaware of; my first philosophical read but not intimidatingly so! Chapters are split into themes such as "how respect has become more desirable than power", "why there has been more progress in cooking than in sex" and so on. It was the index which made me buy this book, oddly enough: "Caesar, Cairo, Cardano, Calcuta, Calvin (John), camerada, cancer..." Any book which includes such a diverse range of topics has to teach you many things. I'm jealous of the author and have bought this book for friends - and would recommend it to anyone.

53 of 63 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Whose humanity? March 11, 2003

By David Egan

Format:Paperback

Theodore Zeldin announces his project in a brief preface. It bristles with the energy of ambition. We sense that we may be about to launch into something truly revolutionary:

"I want to show how, today, it is possible for individuals to form a fresh view both of their own personal history and of humanity's whole record of cruelty, misunderstanding, and joy. To have a new vision of the future, it has always first been necessary to have a new vision of the past.... Instead of explaining the peculiarity of individuals by pointing to their family or childhood, I take a longer view: I show how they pay attention to--or ignore--the experience of previous, more distant generations, and how they are continuing the struggles of many other communities all over the world ... among whom they have more soul-mates than they may realize."

The 25 chapters that follow bear titles like "How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them," and "How people choose a way of life, and how it does not wholly satisfy them." Each chapter begins with a portrait of one or several people in the contemporary world--usually French women--focusing on a particular life problem, or a creative attempt at solving such a problem. Zeldin follows this portrait with a brief history of that problem, or of a clearly related phenomenon.

For instance, the first chapter opens with a portrait of Juliette, a domestic servant who feels trapped in her job, in her social class, and by the unbridgeable distance between her and potential friends. This portrait is followed by a history of slavery--not a linear history, but a selective highlighting of relevant themes and moments in the history of slavery.... Zeldin emphasizes that not all slaves have been so involuntarily, nor is there such a great difference between those who are enslaved forcibly and those who are enslaved by their own lack of imagination. The overall effect is that we gain a stronger sense of kinship with medieval Slavs and others whose history is contrasted with Juliette's, as well as a stronger sense of our own agency in determining how we might fit ourselves into the patterns of history.

This first chapter is one of the strongest in the book, and I summarize it as an example of Zeldin's project at its brightest. Throughout the book, Zeldin writes with admirable compassion, as well as with an unapologetic earnestness that would read as idealistically naďve if it weren't for the intelligence and determined sincerity of his prose. These qualities made me want his project to succeed, and yet by the hundredth page I had already almost given up on it.

I had hoped to find a deep history of psychology and morality, a revelation that our preoccupations, passions, and needs, and the consequent values that they engender, have a long genealogy that is far from transparent. Such a history might help to disabuse us of the feelings of necessity and immutability that hover about our frustrations. However, rather than present us with a rich diversity of psychological and ethical concerns, Zeldin is keen to impose modern values and preoccupations on that past, dictating the morals we are to learn from his histories rather than allowing us to draw our own lessons and conclusions.

I believe the lack of relativism is quite intentional. Zeldin is inspired by the universalism of the Enlightenment, and speaks admiringly of the Declaration of the Rights of Man as being a declaration not just for the French people, but for all people. He wants us to see that all humans share a great deal, that people of different eras and cultures are not so different from us. Applying liberal values and contemporary emotional preoccupations to times past may foster a greater sense of kinship, but I think it is also deeply misleading. If our aim is to understand people of other cultures, we must make a determined effort to understand them as they understand themselves. How useful is a feeling of kinship if it is based ultimately on misrepresentation?

A further unfortunate consequence of Zeldin's imposition of liberal values on the past is that, despite an impressive range of examples, the book becomes repetitive. An exhortation toward open-mindedness can be given quite thoroughly in twenty pages. If a book of 472 pages returns again and again to a very basic set of themes, without elaborating on them or moving beyond them, it becomes tiresome no matter how many engaging historical anecdotes it contains. Despite the staggering breadth of Zeldin's reading, despite the range and diversity of the lives he portrays, this book ultimately makes for a disappointingly narrow read.

And while it is hard to fault the impressive range of material that Zeldin leads us through quite comfortably, certain choices narrow the breadth of the book even further. His justification for interviewing French women almost exclusively (he doesn't seem to register that almost all these women are also white) reads as a half-hearted apology for Francophilia. While we do get the occasional glimpse into the rich cultures of India, China, and Japan (less so with cultures with less sophisticated literary traditions) most of his anecdotes draw from the history of the Christian and Muslim West. While it would be unreasonable to demand a deep knowledge of all aspects of world history (though a project this ambitious would seem to require it) there are moments that the need for a non-Western point of contrast or comparison is sorely felt.

Zeldin wishes to speak for all humanity, but he succeeds only in speaking of all humanity, and even there his effort is lackluster. In truth, he only speaks for those of us in the modern West, and in addressing our current preoccupations with a therapeutic aim, his book reads as much like self-help as it does like a history. Read more ›