Book of Phobias & Manias, The: A History of the World in 99 Obsessions by Kate Summerscale
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Description
Ever been struck dumb when speaking in public? You might be suffering from glossophobia. Do your book-buying habits verge on bibliomania? Do you recoil in arachnophobic horror at the sight of a spider – or twitch with nomophobia when you misplace your mobile phone?
Our fears and compulsions often feel like part of our deepest selves – yet they're bound up in the currents of the world around us. This thrilling compendium of 99 phobias and manias, rare and familiar, delves into the obsessions that shape us all. Award-winning author Kate Summerscale takes us from the Middle Ages to the present day, using rich and riveting case studies to trace the links between the private and the public, the personal and the political.
'Summerscale's brilliance lies not only in recognising the power of a particular story, but in charting, with beautiful precision, its strange echoes and reverberations' – Craig Brown
256 pp. softcover
13.5 x 2 x 21.6 cm
276 g
Published October 2022 by Profile Books