Just Couldn’t Finished Reading: The Pursuit of Happiness – A History from the Greeks to the Present by Darrin McMahon (FP: 2006)

On the face of things this was right up my street – a book (described as ‘a delight’ by the New York Times) discussing the philosophical idea of happiness as it changed and evolved over the past 2000 or so years of western history. It started off fairly well with the Greeks and Romans (naturally) and followed the examples I would have expected to come up. The criticism when it came was largely reasonable if, I thought, a bit harsh. Then followed what I couldn’t help but think was a rather long and somewhat turgid exposition of the new Christian perspective on things. Of course I knew this was coming historically so trudged my way through it with my eyes on the next developments in human thought. Finally we arrived in the Renaissance and I, briefly, breathed a sigh of relief. Until, that is, the author began saying that the period, famous for its flowering of ancient knowledge welding to an increasingly humanist slant, was far more religious and far more Christian than most people realise. I guess that alarm bells should have rung at that point but I persevered and looked forward to the Enlightenment. Of course the period didn’t really live up to its name – at least according to him. Rather it, wrongly apparently, turned its back on the true source of happiness (you guessed it – God) and went all secular on the subject. Inevitably, so it seems, a simplistic form of hedonism emerged and took hold of the weak minded fools who came across it leading to short lives of pleasure followed by decay, pain, nasty diseases and death. I am, of course, paraphrasing here but you can see why I stopped reading at this point – 260 odd pages in.

Rather than being a ‘delight’ I increasingly found this book to be intensely irritating, patronising and offensive. Neither the blurb on the back of the book or the authors details inside the jacket made me believe, prior to actually dipping in and attempting to read it, that this was in any way a religious book. Now, I am aware that everyone is prejudiced in some way or other – and I certainly don’t exclude myself here – but I like to be made aware of said prejudice so I can take it into account during the reading process. What I don’t like is said prejudice proudly proclaimed without any admission to its operation. The author was stating his opinion as fact – that Christian ideas of happiness are simply true whilst all other views on the subject are at best flawed or at worst positively harmful if not downright evil. I’m sure that if I was already of that opinion I would have enjoyed having it validated here. However, I like to think that my appreciation of the subject is a bit more sophisticated than that so didn’t appreciate being lectured about the self-evident evils of the Enlightenment and everything that followed from it. Needless to say I cannot recommend this book to anyone who sees themselves as an independent thinker.