Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xii
4. INTRODUCTION 1
5. CULTURAL HISTORY
6. The Mediterranean in History edited by David Abulafia, 2003 9
7. The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us 13
8. Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity 16
9. Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism 19
10. Stonehenge 22
11. Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind 25
12. Vauxhall Gardens: A History 29
13. A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton 33
14. Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men after the First World War 36
15. Private Words: Letters and Diaries from the Second World War 40
16. In the Fifties 43
17. The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus 46
18. A Great Feast of Light: Growing Up Irish in the Television Age 49
19. Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain 53
20. IQ: The Brilliant Idea that Failed 56
21. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies: Almost Always Do Better 60
22. Leadville: A Biography of the A40 64
23. SCIENCE
24. The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution 71
25. Darwin’s Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England 75
26. Darwin’s Sacred Cause: Race Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins 75
27. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science 79
28. You’re Looking Very Well: The Surprising Nature of Getting Old 82
29. The Science of Love and Betrayal 86
30. Laughter: A Scientific Investigation 89
31. Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears 89
32. Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour that Changed the World 93
33. Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood 95
34. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer 98
35. Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End 102
36. MEMOIRS
37. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier 109
38. No Voice from the Hall: Early Memories of a Country House Snooper 113
39. Gypsies: An English History 116
40. Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future that Disappeared 119
41. Family Secrets 122
42. Swimming with My Father: A Memoir 126
43. Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense 129
44. Publisher 132
45. Untold Stories 135
46. Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl 139
47. Naked at Lunch: The Adventures of a Reluctant Nudist 142
48. Ahead of the Class: How an Inspiring Headmistress Gave Children Back Their Future 145
49. Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History 148
50. Alamein to Zem Zem 151
51. ANTHROPOLOGY
52. Feast: Why Humans Share Food 157
53. The Reinvention of Humanity: A Story of Race, Sex, Gender and the Discovery of Culture 161
54. Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle 164
55. Letters to Lily on How the World Works 167
56. BIOGRAPHY
57. The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of a Jamaican Slave Who Became Samuel Johnson’s Heir 173
58. Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt 176
59. Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters 180
60. Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett 183
61. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist 183
62. The World of Samuel Beckett, 1906–1946 183
63. Eric Gill 187
64. Betjeman: The Bonus of Laughter 190
65. Eileen: The Making of George Orwell 194
66. The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul 197
67. Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin 200
68. The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome 204
69. Furious Interiors: Wales, R.S. Thomas and God 207
70. LITERATURE
71. The Poet’s Tale: Chaucer and the Year that Made the Canterbury Tales 213
72. Shakespeare’s Language 216
73. Shakespeare’s Wife 219
74. The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Eight: 1856–1858 223
75. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, 2 vols 226
76. The Short Sharp Life of T.E. Hulme 230
77. Robert Graves and the White Goddess, 1940–1985 233
78. Robert Graves: Life on the Edge 233
79. Robert Graves: Collected Writings on Poetry 233
80. The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956–1963 238
81. Faulks on Fiction: The Secret Life of the Novel 241
82. The Good Soldier Švejk 245
83. BACK TO NATURE
84. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature 251
85. Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden 255
86. Owl Sense 257
87. The Spade as Mighty as the Sword: The Story of World War Two’s Dig for Victory Campaign 260
88. Bertie, May and Mrs Fish: Country Memories of Wartime 264
89. Running for the Hills: A Family Story 267
90. MIND BENDERS
91. A Short Treatise of the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life 273
92. The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of the Universe 276
93. The Clock Mirage: Our Myth of Measured Time 280
94. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind 283
95. VEGETABLE GARDENING
96. Vegetable Gardening 289