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Love Simon May

Love By Simon May

Love by Simon May


$10.00
Condition - Very Good
Out of stock

Summary

Love - unconditional, selfless, unchanging, sincere, and totally accepting - is worshipped as the West's only universal religion. To challenge it is one of our few remaining taboos. In this book, the author does just that, dissecting our resilient ruling ideas of love and showing how they are the product of a long and powerful cultural heritage.

Love Summary

Love: A History by Simon May

Love-unconditional, selfless, unchanging, sincere, and totally accepting-is worshipped today as the West's only universal religion. To challenge it is one of our few remaining taboos. In this pathbreaking and superbly written book, philosopher Simon May does just that, dissecting our resilient ruling ideas of love and showing how they are the product of a long and powerful cultural heritage. Tracing over 2,500 years of human thought and history, May shows how our ideal of love developed from its Hebraic and Greek origins alongside Christianity until, during the last two centuries, God is love became love is God-so hubristic, so escapist, so untruthful to the real nature of love, that it has booby-trapped relationships everywhere with deluded expectations. Brilliantly, May explores the very different philosophers and writers, both skeptics and believers, who dared to think differently: from Aristotle's perfect friendship and Ovid's celebration of sex and the chase, to Rousseau's personal authenticity, Nietzsche's affirmation, Freud's concepts of loss and mourning, and boredom in Proust. Against our belief that love is an all-powerful solution to finding meaning, security, and happiness in life, May reveals with great clarity what love actually is: the intense desire for someone whom we believe can ground and affirm our very existence. The feeling that makes the world go round turns out to be a harbinger of home--and in that sense, of the sacred.

Love Reviews

May could just have achieved the seemingly impossible and produced a truly original philosophy of love... May is able to draw out what is true in each age's perception of love, discard what is misleading, and synthesise the result into the most persuasive account of love's nature I have ever read.-Financial Times Financial Times This book deserves to rank with Denis de Rougemont's classic Love in the Western World. Readers...will gain much from May's well-crafted study.-Library Journal Library Journal Rich, provocative and illuminating.-Jane O'Grady, Times Higher Education -- Jane O'Grady Times Higher Education [May's] discussion...provides a coherent narrative that is aided by his illustrative writing.-Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly Well written and provocative, this book challenges tradition.-R. White, Choice -- R. White Choice Intellectually engaging... Provocative.-Charlotte Allen, The Wall Street Journal -- Charlotte Allen The Wall Street Journal

About Simon May

Simon May is visiting professor of philosophy at King's College London, and Birkbeck, University of London.

Additional information

GOR005111681
9780300118308
0300118309
Love: A History by Simon May
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Yale University Press
2011-07-19
304
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Love