This book takes a thematic approach to questions of how to define emotion and loneliness, breaking down loneliness into a range of different dimensions – estrangement, longing, homesickness, isolation – and considers how these phenomena appear across a range of global contexts.

Loneliness is a topic of current concern, a downside of the anomie of the modern condition. Yet, emotions and experiences that share some of the features of loneliness can be found in cultures from the ancient world onwards. The book engages with discussions about what loneliness might encompass and how different societies and people have experienced it, raising key questions including where we place the boundaries of emotion, what makes particular emotions distinctive and cultural (or conversely universal), and how we might engage in comparative work across languages and cultures.

Loneliness in World History provides an introduction to an important contemporary emotion across cultures and time, and it is particularly suited for undergraduate students and those new to the field of the history of emotions.