Obsession: A History (Hardback)

We live in an age of obsession. Not only are we hopelessly devoted to our work, strangely addicted to our favorite television shows, and desperately impassioned about our cars, we also admire obsession in others: we demand that lovers be infatuated with one another in films, we respond to the passion of single-minded musicians, we cheer on driven athletes. To be obsessive is to be modern. But obsession is not only a phenomenon of modern existence: it is a medical category - both a pathology and a goal. Behind this paradox lies a fascinating history, which Lennard J. Davis tells in "Obsession".