This was enjoyable although uneven with some chapters better than others. Some felt too technical, like the one on Buddhism, while others a bit far-fetched - the one on the Ghanaian Queen, despite having such an interesting historical figure, felt like a filler, and at times I thought the author was extrapolating too much, maybe because despite being an expert it was written for the general public and in a way that was at times too simple. Overall though, it was interesting and enjoyable to read.

The amount of research and dedication that were put into "A Human History of Emotion" is truly impeccable. However, I'm afraid that's exactly what makes this book less engaging and less accessible for the non-academic reader. It doesn't mean that the book isn't interesting, because it is by showing how feelings and emotions shaped communities and influenced the history.

Richard Firth-Godbehere is a good writer and storyteller. The titles of chapters and the flow of the book show his wit and talent (honestly, who wouldn't smile at a "paranoid android"?). But sometimes it is necessary to kill your darlings for the sake of cutting down on unnecessary details.

One of the most comprehensive surveys of historical views about emotion, but at times the amount of detail felt unnecessary. For example, did we really need to be told how many times the Dutch and English fought wars? (36%).

The central idea of the book was narrated thoughtfully, as a story of how ‘emotion’ was invented in the 19th Century, and emerged from older views about passions, sentiments and religious responses.

To tell this story the first few chapters provide an overview of various religious views. The detail was informative, but it felt a little excessive in places. There were also occasional infelicities of nuance. For example, Dionysius of Athens is described as a Neoplatonist (18%). But it was Pseudo-Dionysius who was the Neoplatonist, several centuries later.

I thought that the treatment of Christianity was a little odd. The focus on St Augustine seemed laboured, and at the cost of discussing other arguably more fundamental concepts, like the New Testament idea of ‘agape’ (a disinterested love which can include enemies).

I found the second half of the book more interesting and more pacy, from where it started narrating ideas from the post Enlightenment era. The chapter on World War I was particularly informative, especially its discussion of how ‘hysteria’ was a female ailment, so even when soldiers seemed to have similar symptoms, their illness had to have its own name, ‘shell shock.’

In an aside, the author tells us that Psychologists were ‘almost completely wrong about everything’ (54%) in the first World War, but their speculations gave Psychology the academic legitimacy it needed, to develop as a serious discipline.

The twentieth century disputes about nature vs nurture (Paul Ekland vs Catherine Lutz) are told clearly and thoughtfully. The story is brought into the contemporary era with an account of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s new models of emotion, at the end of the book.

Overall I appreciated the author’s erudition and enjoyed the second half of the book. But the reader experience was marred by occasional annoyances of style and seemingly pointless footnotes. For example did there really need to be a footnote telling the reader not to get the author started talking about robots? (74%). I appreciate that modern books are trying to cultivate a more chatty style than the dry formalism of older books, but at times I wish it wasn’t at the expense of conciseness and relevance.