A groundbreaking history of the emotion spanning many decades, by renowned author Ferdinand Mount. In the modern era, whatever we believe we feel, you can be sure that the past has played a role. In the book Soft, Ferdinand Mount narrates the thousand-year history of emotion through vivid images, superb storytelling, and strange historical revelations.

Revealing all the curious and wonderful ways in which people in the past expressed their sorrow and joy, Mount explores the changing significance that societies have given to empathy for others' misfortunes. Every pivotal moment, Mount argues, from the French Revolution to Human Rights, had a corresponding emotional revolution that fueled these great political shifts.

But throughout this long history, strong emotions were often targets of attack. No one wants to be accused of being emotional. Critics dismiss it as sentimental, effeminate, and popular – elements reminiscent of soap operas and pop songs. The Reformation tried to eliminate excessive emotionality, Victorians maintained a steady recent style, and no one disliked emotionality more than the modernists – yet today, it is not the Stoics that dominate: we live in an age of emotion.

This is an insightful and rapid history of understanding emotions and how they have influenced culture.