Stuart Walton

I consider this book to be something of a misrepresentation. The jacket and the first few pages imply a scientific tour of the emotions, but what we actually get is a literary and historical tour. This is occasionally interesting, but also remarkably frustrating.

The work feels like a constant re-reading of Freud --- ideas thrown out based on no scientific evidence, but with the fact that they were propounded by Homer or
Shakespeare or Goethe considered good enough to make them true.
For example the brief discussion of obsessive-compulsive behavior has plenty of amateur psychology to say on the subject, but gives no mention of the fact that drugs substantially dampen the behavior, an inconvenient fact that pretty much demolishes the Freudian type theory offered up for this malady.

Occasionally interesting, but basically not worth the hassle.… (mais)