Read more
What was a Buddhist monk doing at the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos lecturing the world's leaders on mindfulness? Why do many successful corporations have a 'chief happiness officer'? What can the chemical composition of your brain tell a potential employer about you? In the past decade, governments and corporations have become increasingly interested in measuring the way people feel: 'the Happiness index', 'Gross National Happiness', 'well-being' and positive psychology have come to dominate the way we live our lives. As a result, our emotions have become a new resource to be bought and sold.In a fascinating investigation combining history, science and ideas, William Davies shows how well-being influences all aspects of our lives: business, finance, marketing and smart technology. This book will make you rethink everything from the way you work, the power of the 'Nudge', the ever-expanding definitions of depression, and the commercialization of your most private feelings. The Happiness Industry is a shocking and brilliantly argued warning about the new religion of the age: our emotions.
About the author
William Davies is Professor of Political Economy at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Centre [PERC]. He is the author of
The Limits of Neoliberalism, The Happiness Industry and
Nervous States. He writes regularly for the
Guardian, London Review of Books and the
New York Times.
Report
Deeply researched and pithily argued, Davies's work is a welcome corrective to the glut of semi-scientific happiness books that have become so popular in business and management circles, and which rarely, if ever, acknowledge the larger ideological goals of workplace well-being. New York Magazine
