On Romantic Love

Romantic love presents some of life's most challenging questions. Can we choose who to love? Is romantic love rational? Can we love more than one person at a time? And can we make ourselves fall out of love? Berit Brogaard here attempts to get to the bottom of love's many contradictions. This
short book, informed by both historical and cutting edge philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, combines a new theory of romantic love with entertaining anecdotes from real life and accessible explanations of the neuroscience underlying our wildest passions. Against the grain, Brogaard argues
that love is an emotion; that it can be, at turns, both rational and irrational; and that it can be manifested in degrees. We can love one person more than another and we can love a person a little or a lot or not at all. And love isn't even always something we consciously feel. However, love --
like other emotions, both conscious and not -- is subject to rational control, and falling in or out of it can be a deliberate choice. This engaging and innovative look at a universal topic, featuring original line drawings by illustrator Gareth Southwell, illuminates the processes behind
heartbreak, obsession, jealousy, attachment, and more.


"[C]ompared to other introductory books analysing love, this book is incredibly well balanced. [...] Firstly, the interdisciplinarity of bringing up the true nature of love from the perspectives of science, philosophy, and sociology. Brogaard does not just simply show us the research results of
various different academic fields, but also turns those into stories, and constructs her own opinions based on them." -- Ōhata Hiroshi, Translated from Japanese by Hannah Kentridge

"Brogaard's book is written to be accessible to general readers without sacrificing philosophical content. It offers more than enough interesting current theoretical work to merit serious attention by professional readers. Whimsical line drawings by illustrator Gareth Southwell add to the book's
appeal. Essential." --Choice

"...Berit Brogaard's On Romantic Love is an achievement... Brogaard illustrates her arguments with acute philosophical intelligence, stylistic verve, and concrete human examples... She allows readers to engage in a very personal way with profound, contentious philosophical positions. She also
navigates easily through the tempestuous technical waters of contemporary neurological research on love, which is where we might expect a flood of future insights." --The Chronicle of Higher Education

"...it is a helpful manual to be used in case of being harmed in love..."
-- Metapsychology Online Reviews

"[A] good read, pacy and informative with a nice balance of narratives, debate overviews and claim staking." -- The Philosophers' Magazine