The Anatomy of Loving

An extraordinary history of love, from the ancient Sumerians to Freud

Of all human emotions, love is perhaps the most mysterious, and the most decisive in shaping our destiny. Without it we are unfulfilled. But is it one emotion, or a compound of many?

The Anatomy of Loving captures the color and vitality of human experience and thought on the subject of love, beginning with the seduction poetry of ancient Sumer, and moving to the findings of twentieth-century psychoanalysis. …