Perpetual Euphoria: On the Duty to Be Happy

by Pascal Bruckner

Book Overview

How happiness became mandatory--and why we should reject the demand to "be happy"

Happiness today is not just a possibility or an option but a requirement and a duty. To fail to be happy is to fail utterly. Happiness has become a religion--one whose smiley-faced god looks down in rebuke upon everyone who hasn't yet attained the blessed state of perpetual euphoria. How has a liberating principle of the Enlightenment--the right to pursue...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691143730
• ISBN13: 9780691143736
• Release Date: January 2011
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.7"