Empathy: A History

by Susan Lanzoni

A surprising, sweeping, and deeply researched history of empathy—from late-nineteenth-century German aesthetics to mirror neurons?

Empathy: A History tells the fascinating and largely unknown story of the first appearance of “empathy” in 1908 and tracks its shifting meanings over the following century. Despite empathy’s ubiquity today, few realize that it began as a translation of Einfühlung or “in-feeling” in German psychological aesthetics that described how spectators projected their own feelings and movements into objects of art and nature.

Remarkably, this early conception of empathy transformed into its opposite over the ensuing decades. Social scientists and clinical psychologists refashioned empathy to require the deliberate putting aside of one’s feelings to more accurately understand another’s. By the end of World War II, interpersonal empathy entered the mainstream, appearing in advice columns, popular radio and TV, and later in public forums on civil rights. Even as neuroscientists continue to map the brain correlates of empathy, its many dimensions still elude strict scientific description.

This meticulously researched book uncovers empathy’s historical layers, offering a rich portrait of the tension between the reach of one’s own imagination and the realities of others’ experiences.

Genres: History, Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy

409 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 2018

About the author

Susan Lanzoni is a historian of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience and teaches at Harvard’s School of Continuing Education. Her work has been featured in the Atlantic and American Scientist and on Cognoscenti on WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. She lives in Cambridge, MA.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This academic treatise is a comprehensively researched tome on the on the evolving meanings of empathy in different disciplines over time. It is more suited for academia than light reading. As I am more interested in social sciences and neurobiology, I found those sections more interesting than the section on early definitions of empathy in art appreciation.

Thanks to NetGalley, Yale University Press, and the author Susan Lanzoni for an advanced electronic reading copy.

[Antonomasia]

When you think there really ought to be a book on something, and a few months later, one appears..!

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Empathy: A History” by Susan Lanzoni tells the little known intriguing story of the concept of empathy, from its first appearance in 1908 through its evolution in meaning over the following century. The idea was transformed over time by social scientists and clinical psychologists, who defined empathy as setting aside one’s own feelings to better understand another’s. As WWII drew to a close, the concept of interpersonal empathy became popularized by advice columns, radio and TV, and in later public forums on civil rights. Highly recommended for its meticulous research and wide sweep. 5/5

Pub Date 25 Sep 2018

Thanks to Yale University Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#Empathy #NetGalley

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. I would never have guessed that empathy was such a recent development in our society and that it was based on the translation of a German word no less. I recall a philosophy I heard about in collage years ago, whose belief was that the only "real" person was oneself and everyone and everything else was simply here for their own entertainment and amusement and weren't real.anyway. Our society seems to fall somewhere between the two in my opinion. Still the book makes a fascinating read of the history of empathy!

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a scholarly history of the concept of empathy. The term "empathy" derives from a German word used in early 20th century aesthetics to talk about how people "feel themselves into" art objects. Gradually the word drifted into other areas, such as psychology and sociology. After World War II, it became a popular term in those areas, as well as business. One of the nuggets that intrigued me was that the Voigt-Kampf test used in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep--the basis for Blade Runner--was a sort of satire or parody of the idea that people in the 1960s were routinely subjected to empathy tests--sometimes for marketing purposes. So it's supposed to be very ironic that androids are subjected to the same tests. This caused me to go back to Dick's 1968 novel. I'm not far into it but am surprised at how central mood and empathy are to the novel. Lanzoni moves on to the way neuroscientists have tried to map the brain and body elements forming the roots of empathy. She talks about the popularity of the idea of mirror neurons but also surveys the many critiques of this type of scientific research. I'm a retired film professor, so I was happy with the readability of Lanzoni's prose, as well as the way she makes specialized information accessible. And lots of intriguing ideas, especially the overarching idea in the book that empathy as a concept used to mean feeling into objects, and then became a word for connections between people. And I guess now it could be used to discuss relations between humans, objects, and maybe other phenomena. Actually, I didn't realize what a trending term empathy has been in modern history, and that's essentially the topic undertaken by this book.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super-interesting long view of the development and deployment of a key concept. Early going is really rich, though by the last third, the book actually felt a bit rushed, piling on the instances of the term's use and development, without lingering to really plumb the cultural meanings deployed there, even as the concept was increasingly adopted across the culture in rich and varied ways--I felt like it was missing a bit of the historicizing-the-present kind of maneuver that the book was so well-positioned to do.

Still, really well-researched, thought-provoking stuff, that I'll use in my work in the near future.

[Amici Nybråten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well worth its investment in time and money.

However, while the book is rich on its subject, it tends to focus too deeply at times on the people behind the history, instead of the thoughts themselves, the experiments and the conclusions, which is the real interesting part.

[Mills College Library]

152.41 L297 2018

[Sara Goldenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exactly as the title states - it's a history, going back hundreds of years. Fasten your seatbelt!

[Cristie Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was extremely interesting, as I did not know the origin of empathy in our society. I was surprised to find that it developed in 1908. Unfortunately in our current society, few have been demonstrating empathy toward others, so this is a timely read.