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In The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions, William M. Reddy offers a theory of emotions which both critiques and expands upon recent research in the fields of anthropology and psychology. Exploring the links between emotion and cognition, between culture and emotional expression, Reddy applies this theory of emotions to the processes of history. He demonstrates how emotions change over time, how emotions have a very important impact on the course of events, and how different social orders either facilitate or constrain emotional life. In an investigation of Revolutionary France, where sentimentalism in literature and philosophy had promised a new and unprecedented kind of emotional liberty, Reddy´s theory of emotions and historical change is successfully put to the test.

An interdisciplinary study of emotions, drawing on works in psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and history
Provides a close reading and new interpretation of eighteenth-century sentimentalism, the Jacobin Republic, and postrevolutionary settlement in France
Reconceptualizes political liberty as an emotional issue



Table of Contents

Preface
Part I. What are Emotions?:
1. Answers from cognitive psychology
2. Answers from anthropology
3. Emotional expression as a type of speech act
4. Emotional liberty
Part II. Emotions in History: France 1700-1850:
5. The flowering of sentimentalism (1700-89)
6. Sentimentalism in the making of the French Revolution (1789-1815)
7. Liberal reason, romantic passions (1815-48)
8. Personal destinies: case material of the early nineteenth century
Conclusion
Appendix A: detailed review of anomalous cases from the Gazette des Tribunaux sample
Appendix B: detailed review of anomalous cases from the Tribunal Civil de Versailles sample
References
Index.