Treating happiness as an in-tellectual history amounts to becoming blind to how differences matter within that history as differences that trouble the very form of its coherence. Strangely, too, the word in every Western language is a cognate with “luck,” as if to imply that to be perfectly happy we need a little help from the stars.

At the same time, Happiness: A History is a scintillating course in the history of ideas that invites us to consider paintings, poetry, even the plaster mask of Beethoven. As an avid reader of ideas and their history, this book is a real treasure. This book on the history of happiness is quite an extensive study, and yet it covers only what great thinkers in Western history have written about the subject.

It brings together three fantastic topics: Happiness, History and Philosophy. This book has actually given me a better understanding of many subjects from a better appreciation for the underlying philosophical contexts of various epochs to a much clearer understanding of the individual philosophers through the ages. About happiness you can produce a library and still not get beyond generalities; that's the problem with container concepts, such as 'love' and 'peace'. Throughout history, happiness has been equated regularly with the highest human calling, the most perfect human state.

If we take up happiness as an intellectual history, it is striking how consistent this history is on one point: happiness …

happiness%3A a history