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).

Review

"Reddy opens up a new phase in the interdisciplinary field of emotion studies by raising questions and providing some answers as well about (collective) emotional change and its limits." American Journal of Sociology

"A masterful overview...immensely valuable." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Brilliant and wonderful: this is a book of profound scholarship that will become central to the fast growing interdisciplinary interest in emotions. Reddy bridges psychology, anthropology and history to explore the fascinating idea that emotion is the process that manages the concerns that are most intimate to humankind." Keith Oakley, University of Toronto

"This is an unusual work, stimulating and productive....Reddy's intuition that emotions should not be simply differentiated in kind from 'thought' is brilliantly developed....[T]his book deserves a serious reading, and I believe it will become a must-read book in any anthropology of the self and emotion." Fred R. Myers, New York University

"The Navigation of Feeling is a highly original, boldly-argued book....Reddy's lucid theoretical interventions force us to reconsider our understanding of the self and human nature, as well as language and its relation to culture. The Navigation of Feeling represents a daring, new direction in humanistic scholarship that should be of interest to scholars across many fields." Mary Louise Roberts, Stanford University

"...a delight to read..." Philosophy in Review

"...a valuable contribution to emotion literature." Canadian Social Studies, Jane Lee-Sinden

Product Description

The Navigation of Feeling critiques recent psychological and anthropological research on emotions. William M. Reddy offers a new theory of emotions and historical change, drawing on research from many academic disciplines. This new theory makes it possible to see how emotions change over time, how emotions have a very important impact on the shape of history, and how different social orders either facilitate emotional life or make it more difficult. This theory is fully explored in a case study of the French Revolution.