Review:
The book I most enjoyed this year was Thomas Dixon's Weeping Britannia.Using a wide range of literary sources and personal documents, the book makes a wonderfully vivid contribution to the history of the emotions, raising fascinating questions about how our expression of feeling is subject to cultural conditioning. (Professor Sir Richard J. Evans, Books of the Year 2015, Times Literary Supplement)
Entertainingly written, and personal to just the right degree, Dixon's book reveals how short-lived was the British cult of the stiff upper lip, and persuades me, as least, not to mourn its passing. (Ritchie Robertson, Books of the Year 2015, Times Literary Supplement)
An elegantly written book that will transform your understanding of the British national character. (Thomas W. Hodgkinson, Books of the year 2015, Spectator)
One of the most lauded history books of 2015. (Matthew Sweet, 1843)
A history of tears makes for a tragicomic read and Dixon has an appropriately light touch. His is a cheerful, erudite book, which charts our attitude to weeping, the contention being that the British have often been proficient, even virtuosic weepers. Dixon blends academic and popular culture well; his voice is accessible and human. (Melanie Reid, Times)
... erudite and entertaining ... This is a book that surprises and delights. (Erica Wagner, New Statesman)
So well written, to the point and enlightening that there were times I almost wept. (Thomas Hodgkinson, Spectator)
enjoyable and scholarly ... one of the many pleasures of Dixon's book is the range of examples that he uses to show us how this story of weeping and the emotional cultures framed by it is never absolute. (Lucy Noakes, History Today)
A wide-ranging, enjoyable and accessible history of British weeping ... If current public debates about British national identity make you want to burst into tears, Weeping Britannia is an enjoyable reminder that you're in good company. (John Gallagher, The Guardian)
Immensely readable and often puckish ... Dixon's instinct for connections and comparisons is unfailingly sharp and illuminating. (Ferdinand Mount, London Review of Books)
About the Author:
Thomas Dixon is a historian of emotions, philosophy, science, and religion at Queen Mary University of London, where he directs the Centre for the History of the Emotions. A regular contributor to radio and television programmes as an academic consultant, interviewee, and presenter, he was the consultant for Ian Hislop's Stiff Upper Lip: An Emotional History of Britain, a three-part BBC Two series in 2012. The author of several books and numerous articles on the history of ideas, in 2008 he was awarded the Dingle Prize (for the best book on the history of science accessible to a wide readership) for his Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction, also published by Oxford University Press. In 2014, he wrote and presented a fifteen-part series, Five Hundred Years of Friendship, for BBC Radio 4.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.