Sitewide Free Shipping - Limited Time Only - No Minimum Spend - T&C's Apply
Track My Order
Help Centre
Likes
My Wish ListsLogin / Join
Booktopia
Australia's local bookstore
Get Free Shipping on orders over $0
Soft : A Brief History of Sentimentality - Ferdinand Mount

Soft

A Brief History of Sentimentality

By: Ferdinand Mount

eBook | 11 September 2025

At a Glance

eBook

RRP $30.09

$25.99

14%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $6.50 with

Instant Digital Delivery to your Kobo Reader App

'[An] erudite, immensely entertaining book...Mount makes for a delightful guide' -- Literary Review

From troubadours to Twitter: a thousand years of feelings, fads and furious sentiment, from renowned essayist Ferdinand Mount.

Whatever we think we feel, you can be sure that the past has had a part to play in it. In Soft, Ferdinand Mount tells the millennium-long history of emotion through delightful snapshots, often mischievous storytelling and a masterly command of history.

Mount explores the shifting importance societies have placed on empathy for the misfortunes of others. Each seismic moment, Mount argues, from the French Revolution to Civil Rights, has had a corresponding sentimental revolution that has fuelled great political turning points and come to define human civilization.

But no one wants to be accused of being sentimental; its detractors call it soppy, effeminate and populist - the stuff of soap operas and pop songs. The Reformation tried to stamp out excessive emotion, the Victorians resolutely maintained their stiff upper lips and no one loathed sentimentality more than the modernists - and yet, today, Mount argues it is not the stoics who are ruling the roost: we are living in an age of emotion.

From the Occitan poets of the 12th century to Paul McCartney' songs, and modern debates around woke, this is a witty insight into the story of emotions and the way they have swayed human history.

on

You Can Find This eBook In

Non-FictionPsychologyPsychology: EmotionsHistorySpecific Events & Topics in HistorySocial & Cultural HistoryRegional & National HistoryEuropean HistoryBritish & Irish HistoryEarliest Times to Present DayModern History from 1700 to 190020th Century History from 1900 to 2000
General & World History

More in Psychology: Emotions

On Children and Death - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

eBOOK

On Children and Death

eBook

$17.99

Sacred Wounds : Succeeding Because of Life's Pain - Jan Goldstein

eBOOK

Sacred Wounds

Succeeding Because of Life's Pain

eBook

RRP $21.99

$17.99

18%
OFF
Working It Through - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

eBOOK

Working It Through

eBook

$11.99

This product is categorised by