Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book sums up 100 of years of research into the study of happiness--from 19th century scientific insights on the subject to the pop psychology perspectives of modern-day America.

We all want to be happy, but what does that mean, and how do we get there? These questions may be a popular topic of positive psychology books in recent years, but interest in the subject stretches back over a century. Distinguished authors Nathan Carlin and Donald Capps examine opinions, research studies, and insights about happiness from the 18th century through today.

100 Years of Happiness: Insights and Findings from the Experts is organized into three sections--one that explores insights from philosophers, another part that reviews study results from researchers, and a final section that casts some skepticism on the study of happiness. The authors review what the experts have found, and explore such questions as: Is happiness the goal of life? Is it possible to measure happiness? Is it possible to become happier? What is the difference between unhappiness and depression? If humankind could eliminate unhappiness from the human condition, should we? This fascinating text provides a basis for readers to develop their own conclusions, and to continue humankind's ongoing discourse on the subject.

Concise summaries of classic debates on the meaning of happiness An examination of cultural and individual belief systems regarding happiness

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Series Foreword (p. xi)
• Preface (p. xiii)
• Introduction (p. xv)
• Part I Some Insights about Happiness
• Chapter 1 Cultivating Happiness (p. 3)
• Chapter 2 The Desire for Happiness (p. 13)
• Chapter 3 The Science of Happiness (p. 23)
• Chapter 4 The Conquest of Happiness (p. 39)
• Part II Some Findings about Happiness
• Chapter 5 The Pursuit of Happiness (p. 57)
• Chapter 6 Authentic Happiness (p. 73)
• Chapter 7 Realistic Happiness (p. 87)
• Chapter 8 Evolving Happiness (p. 101)
• Chapter 9 Forecasting Happiness (p. 115)
• Chapter 10 Becoming Happier (p. 129)
• Part III Some Questions about Happiness
• Chapter 11 The Artifice of Happiness (p. 145)
• Chapter 12 Against Happiness (p. 159)
• Chapter 13 Exploring Happiness (p. 167)
• Chapter 14 Afterthoughts (p. 179)
• Notes (p. 189)
• References (p. 195)
• Index (p. 201)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Carlin (medical humanities, Univ. of Texas, Houston) and Capps (pastoral theology, Princeton Theological Seminary) have written a book of summaries of other books on happiness. The middle section, "Findings about Happiness" (six chapters), summarizes several major current authors in the field, such as David Myers, Martin Seligman, Richard Layard, and Daniel Gilbert. The last section, "Questions about Happiness" (four chapters), summarizes a disparate set of critiques of some current uses of the idea of happiness, including those of Ronald Dworkin and Eric Wilson. But the first section, "Insights about Happiness" (four chapters), is a truly puzzling motley of now-obscure essayists on happiness from a century ago--Horace Fletcher, Karl Hilty, Jean Finot, and a little-known work by Bertrand Russell. This book appears in the "Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality" series, but there is little spirituality and very little religion in most of the authors' sources or summaries. In an afterword the authors give a few pages of their personal favorites among the tidbits of happiness advice they reviewed, but that is it as far as they go in analysis and critique. The reader would be better off going directly to the books they cite, especially those in the middle section. Not useful for academic users. Summing Up: Optional. General readers. B. Weston Centre College

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Nathan Carlin , PhD, is director of the Medical Humanities and Ethics Certificate Program at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, TX.

Donald Capps , PhD, is William Harte Felmeth Professor of pastoral theology (emeritus) and adjunct professor of pastoral theology at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ.