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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #225185 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780802142894
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Before the contemporary onslaught of therapeutic treatments and self-help guidance, the very idea of happiness in this life was virtually unknown. In this eminently readable work, McMahon (Enemies of Enlightenment) looks back through 2,000 years of thought, searching for evidence of how our contemporary obsession came to be. From the tragic plays of ancient Greece to the inflammatory rhetoric of Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, McMahon delves deeply into the rich trove of texts that elucidate and confirm the development of Western notions of this elusive ideal. In one particularly rousing section, he highlights the breakthrough thinking of German theologian and religious revolutionary Martin Luther. Locked in self-imposed exile in the Augustine Black Monastery in Wittenberg, Luther struggled with a God who punished sinners, then realized that man is "justified—made just, not punished with justice..." and that this life was one to be lived, that man must "drink more, engage in sports and recreation, aye, even sin a little" in order to be happy. Throughout McMahon leads the reader with strong, clear thinking, laying out his ideas with grace, both challenging and entertaining us in equal measure.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Even when the subject is, alluringly, happiness, readers may fear that a 544-page, heavily annotated book will be a dry, abstruse tome. Be not afraid. Erudite and detailed without being pedantic, Happiness is lively, lucid and enjoyable. Darrin M. McMahon's history of happiness concentrates on the great books of the Western world. From ancient Greek tragedies' portrayal of happiness as a gift of the gods, through Roman celebrations of everyday comforts and pleasures, the medieval Christian focus on eternal bliss, and the modern conviction that earthly happiness is not just a right but practically a duty, McMahon traces the way conceptions of happiness have changed. The author, a professor of history at Florida State University, demonstrates "not only the centrality of the issue of happiness to the Western tradition, but the centrality of that same tradition and legacy to contemporary concerns." His book abounds with intriguing material. For example, it shows how G.K. Chesterton's aphorism "The world is full of Christian ideas gone mad" applies to happiness: Just as Christianity promises heaven, various secular thinkers came to promise heaven on earth -- earthly happiness -- to those who followed the true path. Conversely, McMahon points out that "the church could scarcely fail to present [its eternal] reward in terms that appealed directly to the senses. Beatitude would satisfy our hunger, quench our thirst, gratify all our longings." In the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, in heaven "the saved will literally be drunk on God." Some Christian mystics even described divine rapture in such "frankly erotic terms" as "the cleaving to the breast of Mary and the taking in of her warm milk." Readers may be tempted to conclude that Christianity is full of worldly ideas gone mad. Also noteworthy is McMahon's observation that traditionally, "a life of privilege was a life without labor ....That men and women should come to believe -- even to expect -- that work ... should sustain their happiness, serving as a source of satisfaction in its own right, is therefore a recent and quite remarkable development." McMahon displays his gift for nimble commentary by adding that it is "one of the delicious ironies of history" that "Marx's contention that not only should we enjoy the fruits of our labor, but labor itself should be our fruit, is today a central tenet of the capitalist creed." Another particularly delightful exhibition of this knack is his reference to the bourgeoisie as "that amorphous group against whom Romantics and revolutionaries alike constantly railed, even as they freely accepted their funds." The book is further enriched by numerous well-chosen illustrations, including an amusing photograph of an adornment of a bakery in Pompeii. The photograph shows the image of a penis, accompanied by the words "Hic Habitat Felicitas" -- here dwells happiness. McMahon's discussion is generally excellent, sympathetic without being uncritical, but occasionally he falters. When considering Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, he criticizes our own society for resembling Huxley's fictional one in that people are "encouraged wherever possible to eradicate the unpleasant rather 'than learning to put up with it.'" But our society has diverse voices, so many of which discourage hedonism that McMahon's criticism is rather hackneyed. In his account of Romanticism, he calls it "a truth" that "suffering [is] necessary to educate the self, to make us more complete human beings." So it is hardly surprising that he accepts Huxley's supposition that in a society where everything is pleasurable, life is bound to revolve around superficial sensory thrills, mindless entertainment and material consumption. This debatable supposition cries out for the balanced and nuanced treatment McMahon gives most of the ideas he discusses. The same point applies to McMahon's uncritical endorsement of the outlook of University of Chicago ethicist Leon R. Kass, the former chair of the Bush administration's Council on Bioethics. This endorsement ignores the reasons why Kass's conservative views are objectionable to many. McMahon maintains that "there is a critical difference between aiming to alleviate senseless suffering and striving to overcome [what Freud called] 'ordinary unhappiness.'" Senseless suffering should be assuaged, he argues, but ordinary unhappiness should be accepted as "inherent to being human." Accordingly, he echoes Kass's antipathy to using medical science " 'beyond therapy' -- beyond, that is, 'the usual domain of medicine and the goals of healing'" to overcome ordinary unhappiness. But McMahon's own recognition that "there is, and can be ... no objective standard of what it is to feel normal, to experience a 'typical' human balance between pleasure and pain" calls the distinction between "senseless suffering" and "ordinary happiness" into question. Furthermore, McMahon's clichéd claim that humans who would manipulate "our genes to enhance our happiness" would "be leaving a piece of their humanity behind" should be assessed in light of a recent suggestion by technology pioneer Ray Kurzweil: The essence of being human lies not in our limitations but in our ability to transcend them. Again, a much more balanced treatment is needed. Fortunately, the book's strengths far outweigh its flaws. Although McMahon neither promises nor delivers the secret of happiness, his book can bring readers the satisfaction of intellectual adventure. Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University. Reviewed by Felicia Nimue Ackerman
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Today bookstore shelves are stocked with encyclopedia titles like Salt, Zero, The Pencil, Cod, Chocolate, and One Good Turn (A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw). Happiness follows in suit but delivers a surprisingly rounded view of its subject. True to his subtitle, McMahon is more interested in cataloging the manifold interpretations of his slippery subject than in delivering a decisive conclusion of what it should be. A few critics wanted some answers; instead, McMahon raises many questions. Certainly, this professor of history at Florida State University presents some thinly veiled opinions, but the success of the book is founded on its encyclopedic and accessible presentation of this most evasive idea.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Well researched, well written
I just finished reading Happiness: A History. This was a very interesting read, and a very informative one.

In summary, McMahon takes us on a philosophical review of happiness, starting with Socrates, and taking us up to modern times. Along the way, we read the opinions of such notable figures as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Napolean, Locke, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Hume, Mill, Weber, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud...to name a few.

I particularly liked the last part of the book, with McMahon pointing out the relevance of Huxley's Brave New World in our own world today. We are a culture that feels happiness is our right, and the search for it extends to recent advances in pharmacology.

In reading this book you will learn about all the various theories and definitions of "happiness," and how each era dealt with it differently. This book is very well researched and presented.

I do have to tell you, Happiness: A History, can be pretty depressing, and there are many parts of the book that are downright bleak. (In an existential kind of way, at least for me.)

Still, highly recommended for those interested in the subject, and for anyone who wants to get a good overview of philosophy through the ages.

Deft, clear, illuminating
Everyone wants to be happy, right? Of course. But what, exactly, does it mean to say that?

The concept, "happiness," means drastically different things to different people. McMahon takes us on a grand tour of how the concept has fluctuated and functioned in Western cultures. If you read this book thoughtfully, the notion that "Everyone wants to be happy" becomes less a platitude and more a conundrum.

If you're well educated in Western history, you won't find a lot of new ideas here--but you will find what you already know reorganized and, in the process, illuminated. The stuff you already know is supplemented by minor historical figures and movements you've probably not had occasion to encounter before. The result is thought-provoking.

My two complaints are about the last chapter.

First, McMahon takes a surprisingly uncritical view of contemporary psychiatric and psychological notions--and doesn't even understand them. In fact--as a substantial body of careful scholarship has shown--notions of mental health owe a great deal to the Enlightenment ideology that McMahon had already explained very nicely before getting to this chapter. But suddenly, he accepts mental health as more or less "sui generis," without historical or cultural influences.

And sadly, he often doesn't even understand the psychological literature he cites. For instance, he refers to studies which he interprets as showing that happiness "is [x]% genetic." But that's not what those studies say, or claim to say. They say, rather, that [x]% of the variance (which is a statistical construct, not a trait) among a population (not a characteristic of individuals) is accounted for by genetics--which is a drastically different notion. I was surprised to see McMahon lacking even an elementary understanding of the concept of a heritability quotient, yet using the concept so prominently.

Second, while it may be unfair to expect a historian to shed light on gigantic contemporary problems, McMahon's disquisition on the importance of "meaningfulness" to satisfying lives comes off as unanchored and unhelpful, precisely because he doesn't have anything useful to say about why it's so hard to find meaning in one's life in post-Enlightenment society and what to do about it. I finished this book thinking, "Well, if McMahon's right, the West is just done-for, then. We've eaten our own young--undermined the conditions for meaningful lives, hence for satisfying lives."

Still, the historical analysis, and the deft presentation of massive amounts of material, are well worth your time. And from the cover picture, it looks like McMahon's a youngster--so I don't guess we should expect him to point the way for Western culture to escape its contradictions quite yet in his career!

It may make you more happy to know more about the history of happiness
One basic reason for reading a book about 'The History of Happiness' is to understand what exactly it is that will make us happy. In other words we might read the book as a kind of how- to- do-it book but one in which we have to figure out the 'principles ' of how to do it by ourselves.
I think it is natural and obvious to most people in our world and time that this subject, our own personal happiness, is one of great importance and one we certainly should be most concerned with.
But one of the first findings of this study is that our attitude about happiness which comes so natural to us is not an 'eternal given' is not the way most people felt most of the time throughout history. They were worried more about other things, like surviving, like getting enough food to do it.
As McMahon sees it the modern conception of individual pursuit of happiness began with the Enlightentment in the 17th and 18th centuries. So the Declaration of Independence declares that it is our right to "pursue life, liberty and happiness." This contrasts sharply with the view of the ancient Greeks and Romans who said " that no man can be considered happy until after death'i.e. It is the whole story of a person's life which determines whether they are 'happy ' or 'not'.
In contrast I think of many expressions in the Jewish tradition beginning with Biblical ones in which 'happiness' is connected with 'sitting in the house of the Lord' or with 'trusting in God' and certainly with 'walking in the way of God." I think that is how in the Jewish religious conception the idea of happiness is bound up with doing our duty to others. And that the idea then of pursuing a private happiness apart from others would seem to make little sense. Here I think of the dictum taught me in my childhood by my grandmother ( The good which we put into the life of others, comes back into our own)In other words happiness is less an individual achievement than it is a way of relating to others.
Considering this kind of focus on the ethical life as the way to happiness, I see that McMahon in focusing on 'individual happiness'from the Enlightentment is also most likely connecting the concept of Happiness' development with an increasing secularization, an individualization.
Nonetheless in one section of the work he is cautionary in regard to the focus placed on drug- induced happiness. He seems to side with Leon Kass' dictum that medical treatments are advisable for special sufferings, but that we should not be seeking to eliminate the ups and downs of everyday life.
I would also point out that while most of us tend to absolutize the good of happiness in relation to ourselves, it is clear that happiness, and certainly pleasure are not in and of themselves always good. For after all there are 'evil people' who take pleasure in making others unhappy.
This brings me back to the basic ethical idea that perhaps the greatest happiness we can have is in making others happy, or sharing that happiness with others.
I am sorry that this review has gone so far away from the book, but if any reader is still with me I would like just to share two thoughts about happiness. Once again it is being good doing good for others- making others happy- loving and being loved which are certainly one source of great happiness and good.
Another point that researches of happiness make. It is when we are absorbed in the work or activity which we most care for that we often feel most happy.
In conclusion. This is by all accounts a tremendously rich and interesting work .
Reading it should be a source of enjoyment( perhaps even happiness) to those who do.