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In Defense of Love: An Argument
From the acclaimed author of The Shakespeare Wars and Explaining Hitler comes a stirring manifesto on love in the modern age.
Who wrote the book of love?
In an impassioned polemic, Ron Rosenbaum—who has written books on the mysteries of Hitler’s evil, the magic of Shakespeare’s words, and the terrifying power of thermonuclear explosions—takes on perhaps his greatest the nature of love. Rosenbaum argues that what we know as love is imperiled now by the quantifiers, the digitizers, and their algorithms, who all seek to reduce love to electrical, chemical, and mathematical formulas.
Rosenbaum brings excitement to his thinking as he interrogates the neuroscience of love, with its “trait constellations,” and the efforts of others to turn all human lovers into numerical configurations. He asks us why our culture has become so obsessed with codifying and quantifying love through algorithms. The very capacity that makes us human, Rosenbaum argues, is being taken over by numerical methods of explanation.
In Defense of Love is more than an examination of the intersection of love with literature and science. It is a celebration of the persistence of a mysterious and uncanny the inexorable power of love.
Who wrote the book of love?
In an impassioned polemic, Ron Rosenbaum—who has written books on the mysteries of Hitler’s evil, the magic of Shakespeare’s words, and the terrifying power of thermonuclear explosions—takes on perhaps his greatest the nature of love. Rosenbaum argues that what we know as love is imperiled now by the quantifiers, the digitizers, and their algorithms, who all seek to reduce love to electrical, chemical, and mathematical formulas.
Rosenbaum brings excitement to his thinking as he interrogates the neuroscience of love, with its “trait constellations,” and the efforts of others to turn all human lovers into numerical configurations. He asks us why our culture has become so obsessed with codifying and quantifying love through algorithms. The very capacity that makes us human, Rosenbaum argues, is being taken over by numerical methods of explanation.
In Defense of Love is more than an examination of the intersection of love with literature and science. It is a celebration of the persistence of a mysterious and uncanny the inexorable power of love.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2023
6 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 12, 2023
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
In "In Defense of Love: An Argument", Ron Rosenbaum explores love. He lays out how love has become a dangerous thing when it is identified with quantifiers and data. Rosenbaum discusses why we are so opposed to making the concept of love a quantifiable thing and how we can remove this aspect of it from social conversation.
I won't beat around the bush about my opinions of this book. I hated it. It was so incredibly boring and made absolutely no sense to me. I wouldn't consider myself dumb or necessarily cynical about love, and that's not why I hated this book. It seemed like this book was trying to pose as something intelligent when in reality, it was slightly pretentious.
It felt as if one was trying to ascertain the point of a conversation with someone that was rambling on and on and on. It went in a million different directions with numerous details that I didn't need nor did I really care about and didn't really have anything to do with the concept of love. I wish I could have gotten the time back that I spent reading this book to read something of a little more pleasure.
In "In Defense of Love: An Argument", Ron Rosenbaum explores love. He lays out how love has become a dangerous thing when it is identified with quantifiers and data. Rosenbaum discusses why we are so opposed to making the concept of love a quantifiable thing and how we can remove this aspect of it from social conversation.
I won't beat around the bush about my opinions of this book. I hated it. It was so incredibly boring and made absolutely no sense to me. I wouldn't consider myself dumb or necessarily cynical about love, and that's not why I hated this book. It seemed like this book was trying to pose as something intelligent when in reality, it was slightly pretentious.
It felt as if one was trying to ascertain the point of a conversation with someone that was rambling on and on and on. It went in a million different directions with numerous details that I didn't need nor did I really care about and didn't really have anything to do with the concept of love. I wish I could have gotten the time back that I spent reading this book to read something of a little more pleasure.
August 31, 2023
Take my review with a grain of salt, because I didn't finish it, and I'll tell you why.
I picked this book up because I love love and I thought having a book talking about the importance of love would be a lot of fun. However, right in the intro I was met with heaps of anti-intellectualism. He argues that studying love, such as through psychology and neuroscience (a field I have a masters in), is "attacking love." I would, of course, argue that this is not true and people like me can both be fascinated by the science of it and still view it as a mystical, special thing. He also repeatedly calls studying the psych and neuro of love "pseudoscience," which seems to be for no other reason than he wants love to remain mysterious, rather than those sciences actually being false. He also mocks the concept that Chaucer's love poems were actually about poetry, which got under my skin less but I know an expert in that field and they have perfectly good reasons to interpret those poems in that way.
I was willing to ignore this and give him the benefit of the doubt, as these are just not his fields and he could have a lot of valuable things to say otherwise. But I had to stop at the point where he claims that Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night has a four word line that he says alone on stage, "I was adored once," at the end of the play after having learned that Lady Olivia is not actually interested in him. I just acted as a lead in Twelfth Night so from both acting in it, watching multiple performances, and double checking the script (to make sure I'm not insane), and can assure you that this is entirely wrong. The line is "I was adored once, too," (five words) which he says in conversation with Sir Toby Belch, not alone on stage, and which happens in the first half before he is properly aware that Lady Olivia is not interested in him.
If it hadn't been for everything else, I would have bristled at this mistake and moved on. But I can't give someone the benefit of the doubt that, while he's misrepresenting other fields, at least he knows his own, when he failed to correctly represent a topic that he is supposed to know intimately. This blunder made him lose absolutely all credibility with me so I couldn't go on.
I don't usually like to leave bad reviews, but I would like the reader to know why I failed to trust the author so that you can make your own decisions. And if you believe love should just be mystical, and poetry taken at face value for the "romance" of it all, then this book might work for you! But this is why it didn't work for me.
I picked this book up because I love love and I thought having a book talking about the importance of love would be a lot of fun. However, right in the intro I was met with heaps of anti-intellectualism. He argues that studying love, such as through psychology and neuroscience (a field I have a masters in), is "attacking love." I would, of course, argue that this is not true and people like me can both be fascinated by the science of it and still view it as a mystical, special thing. He also repeatedly calls studying the psych and neuro of love "pseudoscience," which seems to be for no other reason than he wants love to remain mysterious, rather than those sciences actually being false. He also mocks the concept that Chaucer's love poems were actually about poetry, which got under my skin less but I know an expert in that field and they have perfectly good reasons to interpret those poems in that way.
I was willing to ignore this and give him the benefit of the doubt, as these are just not his fields and he could have a lot of valuable things to say otherwise. But I had to stop at the point where he claims that Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night has a four word line that he says alone on stage, "I was adored once," at the end of the play after having learned that Lady Olivia is not actually interested in him. I just acted as a lead in Twelfth Night so from both acting in it, watching multiple performances, and double checking the script (to make sure I'm not insane), and can assure you that this is entirely wrong. The line is "I was adored once, too," (five words) which he says in conversation with Sir Toby Belch, not alone on stage, and which happens in the first half before he is properly aware that Lady Olivia is not interested in him.
If it hadn't been for everything else, I would have bristled at this mistake and moved on. But I can't give someone the benefit of the doubt that, while he's misrepresenting other fields, at least he knows his own, when he failed to correctly represent a topic that he is supposed to know intimately. This blunder made him lose absolutely all credibility with me so I couldn't go on.
I don't usually like to leave bad reviews, but I would like the reader to know why I failed to trust the author so that you can make your own decisions. And if you believe love should just be mystical, and poetry taken at face value for the "romance" of it all, then this book might work for you! But this is why it didn't work for me.
October 2, 2023
I had to give up on this one. I love literary analysis and personal narratives woven into examinations of societal questions, but this did more for rolling my eyes than inspiring the heart.
At the beginning of my read, here is what I said:
At first, I sort of found value in this, especially when another reader here in the reviews remarked that this was just the author's personal views and experiences. Well, if the author talks about his substantial _adult_ experiences with love at any point in the book, it'll have to be for another reader because 90 pages in, I got the sense that I'd get more insight into the nature of love from reading a washed up Youtuber than this guy.
If I got any insight at all as to what Rosenbaum considers the true essence of love, it's the insistence that no one can ever know what it really is at its core and probably closer to what the ancient Greeks considered madness by love. I personally think this is pretty revealing for a seventy-something year old man who seems to think that couples performing any emotional effort on their relationships is a clear sign that they are not meant to be together and that desiring behavioral changes perverts love in some way. Even his literary analysis is self contradictory and misses the point that his colleagues seem to be gently pleading with him to understand.
Not to be reductionist or rude but this book reads like an embarrassing screed by an overgrown child, demanding that the world let him remain a child and still get that once in a lifetime fairytale romance he feels owed rather than an honest personal examination of the nature of love at all.
At the beginning of my read, here is what I said:
This thing opens up with a flashbang of pompous, undeserved declarations of authority and virtue after pattering on about his time at Yale before cane-waiving at "neo-Marxists".
I'm over 60 pages in and I feel like I have walked into a Trashfuture sketch. I am eagerly awaiting the moment that this guy makes an absurd whataboutism about those he feels are ruining the mystique of love that he holds so sacred and then solemnly declares "their silence speaks volumes."
At first, I sort of found value in this, especially when another reader here in the reviews remarked that this was just the author's personal views and experiences. Well, if the author talks about his substantial _adult_ experiences with love at any point in the book, it'll have to be for another reader because 90 pages in, I got the sense that I'd get more insight into the nature of love from reading a washed up Youtuber than this guy.
If I got any insight at all as to what Rosenbaum considers the true essence of love, it's the insistence that no one can ever know what it really is at its core and probably closer to what the ancient Greeks considered madness by love. I personally think this is pretty revealing for a seventy-something year old man who seems to think that couples performing any emotional effort on their relationships is a clear sign that they are not meant to be together and that desiring behavioral changes perverts love in some way. Even his literary analysis is self contradictory and misses the point that his colleagues seem to be gently pleading with him to understand.
Not to be reductionist or rude but this book reads like an embarrassing screed by an overgrown child, demanding that the world let him remain a child and still get that once in a lifetime fairytale romance he feels owed rather than an honest personal examination of the nature of love at all.
October 11, 2024
Negative reviews embody why the book was written lol
IT DENIES SCIENCE! LITERATURE! LOVE ITSELF!
All of which confirm they were looking confirmation of their ideas of love and didn't find it here.
I read this book for a more emotional and individual perspective on love and providing literary or societal disputes to scientific theories attempting to "solve," love.
It even has several examples of scientists, and their experiments, what they resulted in, and what could spur their original research other than a "love," of something
There's plenty of subjectivity to the conversational writing style, but there's very little circular talk outside of actually calling back to earlier parts for context or humor
IT DENIES SCIENCE! LITERATURE! LOVE ITSELF!
All of which confirm they were looking confirmation of their ideas of love and didn't find it here.
I read this book for a more emotional and individual perspective on love and providing literary or societal disputes to scientific theories attempting to "solve," love.
It even has several examples of scientists, and their experiments, what they resulted in, and what could spur their original research other than a "love," of something
There's plenty of subjectivity to the conversational writing style, but there's very little circular talk outside of actually calling back to earlier parts for context or humor
April 8, 2024
I cannot successfully defend this 600 page diatribe any more than Rosenbaum successfully defends love by the end.
December 26, 2023
Rosenbaum's impassioned defense of love as a metaphysical force, not mere brain chemistry, starts very strong. I found his writing style both entertaining and gripping, and I look forward to reading his other books for his technical skill alone. I also appreciate how much he cares about the topic - although I shared his view already, I was further convinced by the historical references to writings about love in art and philosophy.
However, this book-length work really should have been an essay. Ideas repeat too often, and his arguments based in creative literature are far stronger than his attempts to counter quantitative claims on love's biochemistry. As a reader, I benefited more from his dissection of English writing, his area of expertise. As he acknowledges, since he is making a mystical argument, the 'intangible' evidence - feelings, writings, art - are the domain in which his evidence lies.
That said, there is a long chapter on Tolstoy's views of love that severely interrupts the flow of his argument. Why should I care about Tolstoy's misogynistic rejection of love and his wife's rebuttal, in the context of a much wider argument about the value of love's intangible nature? I was not persuaded that their disagreement is particularly insightful. Occasionally, I was baffled as to why Rosenbaum did not criticize Tolstoy as venomously as he does Helen Fisher or modern journalists who de-mystify love. But Rosenbaum's deep love of literature, which drips deliciously from this book's pages, diverts his attention to an examination of Tolstoy at the expense of the greater objective. Alone, "Tolstoy's Complaint" is an intriguing look at an end-of-life misogynist and his wife's literary counterpunch. Within "In Defense of Love", the author-scholar's fondness for Tolstoy's writing undermines his searing attack on the opinions Tolstoy shares.
Lastly, notes or references are not listed in this publication. Whether this is a choice of the author or the publisher, the decision to omit citations really frustrated me. This is a nonfiction text that references many other works to make an argument, and it's reasonable to expect an organized list of sources.
While I was disappointed with this work, I very much enjoyed Rosenbaum's writing ability and am glad someone is publicly defending the metaphysical aspect of love. I very much look forward to reading his other books on the battles over Shakespeare and an investigation of the nature of evil.
However, this book-length work really should have been an essay. Ideas repeat too often, and his arguments based in creative literature are far stronger than his attempts to counter quantitative claims on love's biochemistry. As a reader, I benefited more from his dissection of English writing, his area of expertise. As he acknowledges, since he is making a mystical argument, the 'intangible' evidence - feelings, writings, art - are the domain in which his evidence lies.
That said, there is a long chapter on Tolstoy's views of love that severely interrupts the flow of his argument. Why should I care about Tolstoy's misogynistic rejection of love and his wife's rebuttal, in the context of a much wider argument about the value of love's intangible nature? I was not persuaded that their disagreement is particularly insightful. Occasionally, I was baffled as to why Rosenbaum did not criticize Tolstoy as venomously as he does Helen Fisher or modern journalists who de-mystify love. But Rosenbaum's deep love of literature, which drips deliciously from this book's pages, diverts his attention to an examination of Tolstoy at the expense of the greater objective. Alone, "Tolstoy's Complaint" is an intriguing look at an end-of-life misogynist and his wife's literary counterpunch. Within "In Defense of Love", the author-scholar's fondness for Tolstoy's writing undermines his searing attack on the opinions Tolstoy shares.
Lastly, notes or references are not listed in this publication. Whether this is a choice of the author or the publisher, the decision to omit citations really frustrated me. This is a nonfiction text that references many other works to make an argument, and it's reasonable to expect an organized list of sources.
While I was disappointed with this work, I very much enjoyed Rosenbaum's writing ability and am glad someone is publicly defending the metaphysical aspect of love. I very much look forward to reading his other books on the battles over Shakespeare and an investigation of the nature of evil.
July 15, 2025
I, unfortunately, could not finish this book. Stopping merely at page 36, I found it to be a chore to get through the pages. Coming into this, I expected that I would be presented with philosophy, some anecdotes, and harmful ways reducing love to science/numbers impacts actual love. Instead, I felt I was experiencing tons of fluff in which Ron is trying to persuade me as to why I should reading this book and why he thinks he should be defending Love. I already started reading the book, I don’t need to persuaded as to why I should want to. It feels unreleased to the point, and I felt like I was wasting my time. As for the fluff, there is just soo much. Almost all 14 pages of Chapter 2 are dedicated to him sharing stories of non-love incidents where some mystery was ruined for him by people trying to make science out of it. It could’ve been easily shorten down to 3-4 pages at most. It makes me wonder why this was a book, and not an essay instead?
September 16, 2025
As the title says: this is an argument. One man's stance against the 'science-ification' of love, which he posits is an unknowable, unquantifiable, human condition. It is unable to be measured, analyzed, or dissected by any of the 'hard sciences' but is and should be left in the hands of the artists, writers, and philosophers in the world. It is more of an exploration of love than any review of its current condition, a series of seemingly unrelated essays on: how Tolstoy hated love, how 'love science' is ruining modern love, the joys of oral sex, among others, interspersed with love stories from the author's life. Very very heavy on literary references, as well as other sorts of name dropping, the author does come across as a bit arrogant, but I think this is part of the point. This is only one man's argument and should be taken as such.
July 25, 2025
This book remains in limbo between 2.5-3.5 range. The chapter on love in the age of algorithms was the strongest of the lot. The chapter on Tolstoy was drawn out for a tad too long. The last chapter “Angels Flying Too Close” felt like a last ditch effort to incorporate the pathos that was severely lacking in the beginning. Sincerely loved a defense of love as a numinous force, rather than the hubristic reductionist constellation of qualia that we are sold in today’s society.
March 12, 2024
True rating: 2.75 star.
I had to DNF this (listened to about 70% of the audiobook). I was really into the first couple hours but after that it felt like the author was just rambling angry thoughts. I do enjoy the concept but just got hard to listen to after the half way point…
I had to DNF this (listened to about 70% of the audiobook). I was really into the first couple hours but after that it felt like the author was just rambling angry thoughts. I do enjoy the concept but just got hard to listen to after the half way point…
July 23, 2025
Easily dnf’d. Quick to demonize polyamory, very heteronormative, and the definition of love in this argument is already so narrow it hardly counts as any defense on the topic.
December 1, 2025
is a yapper droning on and i think there were still some takeaway that i ended up glazing through because theres a lot of words for the same points and not a lot of substance :(
July 20, 2024
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Melville House Publishing for an advance copy of this book that is a mediation and call to attention for something we are letting others codify, classify, define, and in many ways ruin and debase.
Ron Rosenbaum is a writer I have followed for quite a long time, one who I might not understand all the time, but one that has never left me without a lot of questions at the end of his work. I subscribed for years to the New York Observer just to read his articles in the second section, an activity that I shared with my father who also loved interesting writing. I learned about lost cult authors, new ways of looking at the world, laughed as his column on the show Seinfeld's final episode, and how he knew it was going out with a whimper. An article that I remember ticked off quite a lot of people. In addition I have read all of his book, on Shakespeare, conspiracies, and even Hitler. In Defense of Love, Rosenbaum looks at how love is being defined in the modern age, with experts speaking about the science of love, data consultants using algorithms to sell love or the idea of loving, and other ways we as a society are cheapening something else to make a dollar.
The book begins with Rosenbaum in Yale University, on scholarship taking part in an experiment that seemed to have no real reason except to get pictures of many Ivy League students in the interest of science. Rosenbaum explains how an expert was able to get a university to take nude pictures of students for years, without any evidence of what these pictures would be good for, all in the interest in science. And this same interest of science is making love, something that has inspired great art, great actions, and shy people to ask others out, another dull boring bit of social media to be filed, stamped, indexed, and numbered.
The book goes in many different directions, and touches on a lot of diverse themes and ideas. Rosenbaum looks at writers from Tolstoy, to writers of bad sex, feminist authors and commentators. Rosenbaum has probably forgotten more about literature than I will ever know, and has many examples from pop culture to long lost poets for examples. I can see why people would have a hard time with this book as it does not cater to love, but discusses that love is a gift and an accomplishment. Not something someone is owed. Most writing about love is similar to the articles in the New York Times Modern Love column. Vacuous, unfulfilling, and stale, sort of like that Whitman's Sampler box that is left in the drugstore on the bottom shelf on Valentine's Day. There is much money to be made in love. One can even save in taxes if one is in love. To Rosenbaum this is not enough. If sometimes he seems to be a scold as he accuses Tolstoy a few times, well that is because he is passionate about his work. And Rosenbaum, loves to write. Which is fair,as I love to read him.
Ron Rosenbaum is a writer I have followed for quite a long time, one who I might not understand all the time, but one that has never left me without a lot of questions at the end of his work. I subscribed for years to the New York Observer just to read his articles in the second section, an activity that I shared with my father who also loved interesting writing. I learned about lost cult authors, new ways of looking at the world, laughed as his column on the show Seinfeld's final episode, and how he knew it was going out with a whimper. An article that I remember ticked off quite a lot of people. In addition I have read all of his book, on Shakespeare, conspiracies, and even Hitler. In Defense of Love, Rosenbaum looks at how love is being defined in the modern age, with experts speaking about the science of love, data consultants using algorithms to sell love or the idea of loving, and other ways we as a society are cheapening something else to make a dollar.
The book begins with Rosenbaum in Yale University, on scholarship taking part in an experiment that seemed to have no real reason except to get pictures of many Ivy League students in the interest of science. Rosenbaum explains how an expert was able to get a university to take nude pictures of students for years, without any evidence of what these pictures would be good for, all in the interest in science. And this same interest of science is making love, something that has inspired great art, great actions, and shy people to ask others out, another dull boring bit of social media to be filed, stamped, indexed, and numbered.
The book goes in many different directions, and touches on a lot of diverse themes and ideas. Rosenbaum looks at writers from Tolstoy, to writers of bad sex, feminist authors and commentators. Rosenbaum has probably forgotten more about literature than I will ever know, and has many examples from pop culture to long lost poets for examples. I can see why people would have a hard time with this book as it does not cater to love, but discusses that love is a gift and an accomplishment. Not something someone is owed. Most writing about love is similar to the articles in the New York Times Modern Love column. Vacuous, unfulfilling, and stale, sort of like that Whitman's Sampler box that is left in the drugstore on the bottom shelf on Valentine's Day. There is much money to be made in love. One can even save in taxes if one is in love. To Rosenbaum this is not enough. If sometimes he seems to be a scold as he accuses Tolstoy a few times, well that is because he is passionate about his work. And Rosenbaum, loves to write. Which is fair,as I love to read him.
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