An Intimate History of Humanity
Published on 25. September 1995
Book
Paperback/Softback
496 pages
978-0-7493-9623-7 (ISBN)
Description
'The book that changed my life... a constant companion' Bill Bailey
'Extraordinary and beautiful...the most exciting and ambitious work of non-fiction I have read in more than a decade' The Daily Telegraph
This extraordinarily wide-ranging study looks at the dilemmas of life today and shows how they need not have arisen. Portraits of living people and historical figures are placed alongside each other as Zeldin discusses how men and women have lost and regained hope; how they have learnt to have interesting conversations; how some have acquired an immunity to loneliness; how new forms of love and desire have been invented; how respect has become more valued than power; how the art of escaping from one's troubles has developed; why even the privileged are often gloomy; and why parents and children are changing their minds about what they want from each other.
'Extraordinary and beautiful...the most exciting and ambitious work of non-fiction I have read in more than a decade' The Daily Telegraph
This extraordinarily wide-ranging study looks at the dilemmas of life today and shows how they need not have arisen. Portraits of living people and historical figures are placed alongside each other as Zeldin discusses how men and women have lost and regained hope; how they have learnt to have interesting conversations; how some have acquired an immunity to loneliness; how new forms of love and desire have been invented; how respect has become more valued than power; how the art of escaping from one's troubles has developed; why even the privileged are often gloomy; and why parents and children are changing their minds about what they want from each other.
Reviews / Votes
Extraordinary and beautiful...the most exciting and ambitious work of non-fiction I have read in more than a decade -- Maggie Gee * Daily Telegraph * The book that changed my life... a constant companion -- Bill Bailey * Prospect Magazine * 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 *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 201 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
320 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7493-9623-7 (9780749396237)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Theodore Zeldin
An Intimate History of Humanity
E-Book
12/2012
1st Edition
Vintage Digital
€10.99
Available for download
Previous edition
Theodore Zeldin
An Intimate History of Humanity
Book
01/1997
Minerva
€29.91
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Theodore Zeldin, educated at Birkbeck College London and Christ Church Oxford, is senior fellow of St Antony's College Oxford. He has been awarded the Wolfson Prize for History, been elected a member of the European Academy, and figures on the Magazine Litteraire's list of the hundred most important thinkers in the world today.