This extraordinarily wide-ranging study looks at the dilemmas of life today & shows how they need not have arisen. Portraits of living people & historical figures are placed alongside each other as Zeldin discusses how men & women have lost & regained hope; how they have learnt to have interesting conversations; how some have acquired an immunity to loneliness; how new forms of love & desire have been invented; how respect has become more valued than power; how the art of escaping from ones troubles has developed; why even the privileged are often gloomy; & why parents & children are changing their minds about what they want from each other.