![]() ![]() Includes bibliographical references (pages 485-528) and index McMahon then shows how our modern search continues to generate new forms of pleasure, but also, paradoxically, new forms of pain.-From publisher description This recognition of happiness as a motivating ideal led to its consecration in the Declaration of Independence. During the Enlightenment men and women were first introduced to the novel prospect that they could-in fact should-be happy in this life as opposed to the hereafter. ![]() ![]() In ancient Greek tragedy, happiness was considered a gift of the gods. He investigates that fundamental transformation by synthesizing two thousand years of politics, culture, and thought. Historian McMahon argues that our modern belief in happiness is a recent development, the product of a revolution in human expectations carried out since the eighteenth century. Today, we think of happiness as a natural right, but people haven't always felt this way. An intellectual history of man's most elusive yet coveted goal. ![]()
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