A History of Solitude

David Vincent (The Open University)

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English

Polity Press
24 April 2020

History; Psychology

Solitude has always had an ambivalent status: the capacity to enjoy being alone can make sociability bearable, but those predisposed to solitude are often viewed with suspicion or pity.

Drawing on a wide array of literary and historical sources, David Vincent explores how people have conducted themselves in the absence of company over the last three centuries. He argues that the ambivalent nature of solitude became a prominent concern in the modern era. For intellectuals in the romantic age, solitude gave respite to citizens living in ever more complex modern societies. But while the search for solitude was seen as a symptom of modern life, it was also viewed as a dangerous pathology: a perceived renunciation of the world, which could lead to psychological disorder and anti-social behaviour.

Vincent explores the successive attempts of religious authorities and political institutions to manage solitude, taking readers from the monastery to the prisoner’s cell, and explains how western society’s increasing secularism, urbanization and prosperity led to the development of new solitary pastimes at the same time as it made traditional forms of solitary communion, with God and with a pristine nature, impossible. At the dawn of the digital age, solitude has taken on new meanings, as physical isolation and intense sociability have become possible as never before. With the advent of a so-called loneliness epidemic, a proper historical understanding of the natural human desire to disengage from the world is more important than ever. The first full-length account of its subject, A History of Solitude will appeal to a wide general readership.

By: David Vincent (The Open University)
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 36mm
Weight: 680g
ISBN: 9781509536580
ISBN 10: 1509536582
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 24 April 2020
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

David Vincent is Professor Emeritus and former Pro Vice Chancellor at The Open University.

Reviews for A History of Solitude

This is a superb book. David Vincent has mobilized texts that he has mastered over fifty years of scholarship and supplemented these - poetry, novels, memoirs and auto-biography - with a dazzling range of sources on everything from stamp collecting to dog walking to prison reform. He manages the intractable distinction between solitude and loneliness over a large domain. This will become the standard work on a topic of both academic and general interest. Thomas Laqueur, University of California at Berkeley Original, bang up-to-date, and impressive in its scholarship. This is a fine piece of work from an experienced historian. Colin Heywood, University of Nottingham 'superb... a remarkably versatile study.' Terry Eagleton, The Guardian?