Soft
A Brief History of Sentimentality
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:11th Sep '25
Should be back in stock very soon
A sweeping history of emotion and culture that spans centuries, from renowned author and essayist Ferdinand Mount.
'[An] erudite, immensely entertaining book...Mount makes for a delightful guide' -- Literary Review
From troubadours to Twitter: a thousand years of feelings, fads and furious sentiment, from renowned essayist Ferdinand Mount.
Whatever we think we feel, you can be sure that the past has had a part to play in it. In Soft, Ferdinand Mount tells the millennium-long history of emotion through delightful snapshots, often mischievous storytelling and a masterly command of history.
Mount explores the shifting importance societies have placed on empathy for the misfortunes of others. Each seismic moment, Mount argues, from the French Revolution to Civil Rights, has had a corresponding sentimental revolution that has fuelled great political turning points and come to define human civilization.
But no one wants to be accused of being sentimental; its detractors call it soppy, effeminate and populist – the stuff of soap operas and pop songs. The Reformation tried to stamp out excessive emotion, the Victorians resolutely maintained their stiff upper lips and no one loathed sentimentality more than the modernists – and yet, today, Mount argues it is not the stoics who are ruling the roost: we are living in an age of emotion.
From the Occitan poets of the 12th century to Paul McCartney' songs, and modern debates around woke, this is a witty insight into the story of emotions and the way they have swayed human history.
Reads like an elegant love letter to the human heart itself. * The Spectator *
Mount’s canvas is far broader and more densely crowded than is indicated by this brief review. There is much to agree with in the book…Again and again he refutes the doomsters and the naysayers, and does so with good humour, warmth and wit. -- John Banville * The Times *
Mount is absolutely gripping when he writes about the historical backlashes against sentimentalism. * Telegraph *
Soft is a compassionate, compelling and entertainingly eccentric survey of collective psychology and the madness of crowds. -- Frances Wilson * TLS *
As cultural criticism, Soft is persuasively entertaining. -- Hannah Rose Woods * Observer *
[An] erudite, immensely entertaining book...Mount makes for a delightful guide. * Literary Review *
Highly readable... Splendidly readable...written with his characteristic verve and style, Mount’s book...is timely. * Financial Times *
[A] superb study. * The Tablet *
[An] erudite, immensely entertaining book… I have seldom read a work of cultural history that made me laugh out loud as frequently as this one did… * News Beep *
A magisterial, personal reflection on the freedom to express our feelings in all their gushy beauty. * Kirkus Reviews *
This is both a thoughtful study and, as befits its subject, frequently moving. -- Richard Sennett * TLS Books of the Year 2025 *
Witty, robust defence of the power of sentimentality to effect change. * Irish Examiner *
I didn’t cry after reading this splendid book, but I was entertained and I did laugh quite a lot. * Church Times *
ISBN: 9781399421881
Dimensions: 238mm x 156mm x 32mm
Weight: 523g
320 pages