The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Definitive Edition - Hardcover

Charles Darwin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195112717 ISBN 13: 9780195112719

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Why do dogs wag their tails and cats purr? Why do we get embarrassed, and why does embarrassment make us blush? Why do we frown when we're disappointed? These any many other questions about the emotional life of humans and animals are answered in this remarkable book.
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was an immediate best-seller when it was first published in 1872 and still provides the point of departure for research into emotion and facial expression. In his study of infants and children (including delightful observations of his own baby's smiles and pouts), of the insane, of painting and sculpture, of cats and dogs and monkeys, and of the ways that people in different cultures express their feelings, Darwin's insights have not been surpassed by modern science. This definitive edition contains a substantial new Introduction and Afterword by Paul Ekman. Ekman also provides commentaries that use the latest scientific knowledge to elaborate, support, and occasionally challenge Darwin's study. When it originally appeared, this was the first scientific book to contain photographic reproductions. For this edition, Ekman has returned to Darwin's original notes in order to produce, for the first time, a corrected, authoritative text illustrated by drawings and photographs positioned exactly as its author intended.
The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals reminds us that, in addition to being the nineteenth century's most influential thinker, Darwin was also a writer of consummate skill. Beautifully and profusely illustrated, and filled with insights that immediately ring true, this new edition promises to delight and enthrall a new generation of readers.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Ekman is Professor Psychology at the University of California at San Francisco. He is the editor of Darwin and Facial Expression and The Nature of Emotion, and author of Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage. He lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

Ekman's edition is no mere reprint plus introduction. The text itself is not a reprint, because Ekman has collated the previous editions and Darwin's manuscripts and corrected some errors. He has also added a particularly good afterword, in which he describes the 20th-century debate about whether emotional expressions are a human universal.... The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is one of Darwin's most readable works. It is alive with anecdotes, literary quotations and his own observations of his friends and children. Artificial-intelligence nerds, neuropsychiatric white-coats and magazine psychobabblers all have some way to go in understanding the emotions, and there will be no better inspiration for them (and the rest of us) than the ideas of one of the master intellects of all time, in this smart new edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195112717
• ISBN 13: 9780195112719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 473