In Nostalgia, historian Agnes Arnold-Forster blends neuroscience and psychology with the history of medicine and emotions to explore the evolution of nostalgia from seventeenth-century Switzerland (when it was held to be an illness that could, quite literally, kill you) to the present day (when it is co-opted by advertising agencies and politicians alike to sell us goods and policies). It is a fascinating, compelling story of a social and political emotion, vulnerable to misuse, and one that reflects the anxieties of the age. It is also a clear-eyed analysis of what we are doing now, how we feel about it and what we might want to change about the world we live in.

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