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A Lively History
Yale University Press
June 2011
On Sale: May 24, 2011
224 pages
ISBN: 0300141106
EAN: 9780300141108
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In the first book to argue for the benefits of boredom,
Peter Toohey dispels the myth that it's simply a childish
emotion or an existential malaise like Jean-Paul Sartre's
nausea. He shows how boredom is, in fact, one of our most
common and constructive emotions and is an essential part of
the human experience. This informative and entertaining investigation of
boredom—what it is and what it isn't, its uses and its
dangers—spans more than 3,000 years of history and takes
readers through fascinating neurological and psychological
theories of emotion, as well as recent scientific
investigations, to illustrate its role in our lives. There
are Australian aboriginals and bored Romans, Jeffrey Archer
and caged cockatoos, Camus and the early Christians, Dürer
and Degas. Toohey also explores the important role that
boredom plays in popular and highbrow culture and how over
the centuries it has proven to be a stimulus for art and
literature. Toohey shows that boredom is a universal emotion experienced
by humans throughout history and he explains its place, and
value, in today's world. Boredom: A Lively History is vital
reading for anyone interested in what goes on when
supposedly nothing happens.
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