A Vindication of Love

Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-first Century

Description

"A fierce and lively book. . . .This is one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way." — New York Times Book Review

“A rousing defense of imprudent ardor and romantic excess. . . . It’s difficult to deny that [Nehring] is on to something.” — Wall Street Journal

A thinking person’s “guide” that makes the case for love in an age both cynical about and fearful of strong passion. Bold and challenging, A Vindication of Love has inspired praise and controversy, and brilliantly reinvigorated the romance debate. A perfect choice for readers of Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life and Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.


Drawing on history, literature, and the lives of defiant women, this passionate polemic asks a daring question: What if our fear of strong passion is the real tragedy?


  • Love as Wisdom: Challenges the cliché that love is blind, arguing that passion is the only state that allows us to truly see another person.
  • A Critique of Modern Love: Exposes how today’s culture has streamlined, safety-checked, and demystified Eros, leaving it unendurably bland.
  • Love as Heroism: Through the lives of figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, Nehring reveals how the quest for love can be a heroic act of strength and creative enlargement.
  • A Feminist Re-evaluation: Confronts the anti-romantic bias within feminism, making the bold case that a woman who feels deeply can also think deeply.

About the author(s)

A highly acclaimed and consistently provocative critic and essayist, Cristina Nehring has written for Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, the New York Times Book Review, Condé Nast Traveler, New York magazine, American Scholar, the Los Angeles Times, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. She lives with her daughter in Paris, Los Angeles, and Chania, Greece.

Reviews

“This is the most intrepid, original, and enjoyable book on love to come out of a shiksa in twenty-five hundred years. Invigorating, life-affirming, toughly argued, and deeply felt.” - Gary Shteyngart

“A fierce and lively book.... one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way.” - New York Times Book Review

“A sharp new polemic.... A Vindication of Love makes an ardent and engaging case for attraction in its rawest form—where lust, emotion and the intellect converge.” - NPR

“An eloquent plea for romantic daring and idealism…A bold, high-flying polemic which sets out to do nothing less than reclaim romantic love for our times.” - Ingrid Norton, Open Letter Monthly

“An ambitious polemic. . . . A fresh reading of literary and historical figures. . . . Nehring’s paean to unconventional ecstasy is a bracing reminder of how narrow and orthodox our vision of love has become.” - Slate

“A rousing defense of imprudent ardor and romantic excess. . . . It’s difficult to deny that she’s on to something. . . . Ms. Nehring reveals (and revels in) the rich inner agonies of the love-tossed.” - Wall Street Journal

“A wild appreciation of men and women . . . who passionately and fearlessly and recklessly redefine romance. . . . The passionate creatures who refuse to play it safe and settle down now have an intelligent, like-minded advocate.” - Jessa Crispin, The Smart Set

“A fierce and lively book. . . . [Nehring] brings to life riveting stories and offers creative interpretations that, taken together, challenge current convention. . . . Nehring is writing in a previous mold, in the lost tradition of the Simone de Beauvoirs and Mary Wollstonecrafts that existed before the clotted irony, the obligatory, cool self-mockery, the endlessly indulgent self-deflation so popular today. . . . This is one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way.” - New York Times Book Review

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