Selected and reviewed by James Park;
in general order of quality, beginning with the best.

1. Morton Hunt The Natural History of Love

(New York: Knopf, 1959—and reprints)  416 pages

    A comprehensive book on the human experience of love,
from the beginning of recorded history to the present.
Very interesting and very readable.

2. Bernard Murstein Love, Sex, and Marriage Through the Ages

(New York: Springer, 1974) 639 pages

    A comprehensive survey of marriage practices world-wide,
from ancient to modern.

3. Irving Singer The Nature of Love: Vol. 1 Plato to Luther

(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1966, 1984)  381 pages

    The Greek, Roman, and Christian periods in the history of love:
Plato, Aristotle, Ovid, Lucretius, Medieval thinkers, and Luther.
This is more a history of philosophy as recorded in books
than how the people of these times actually experienced love.

4. Irving SingerThe Nature of Love: Vol. 2 Courtly and Romantic

(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984)  513 pages

    How love was experienced from the Middle Ages to the 1800s.
Courtly love grew out of earlier religious or mystical traditions,
creating secular strivings to replace religious worship.
Poets, musicians, playwrights, and later novelists
were the main expressers of love for this period.

5. Irving Singer The Nature of Love Vol. 3 The Modern World

(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987)  473 pages

    This volume discusses Freud, Proust, D.H. Lawrence,
G.B. Shaw, Santayana, Sartre as well as other modern thinkers.
In these 3 volumes the whole history of love can be seen thru one mind.

6. Joseph BarryFrench Lovers:
From Heloise & Abelard to Beauvoir & Sartre

(New York: Arbor House, 1987)  352 pages

    The history of several famous French couples.
Very interesting reading.

7. Robert E. Wagoner The Meaning of Love:
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Love

(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997)  149 pages

    A presentation of ideas about love from Plato and Aristotle
to the present: Socrates, Kierkegaard, Kant, Sartre, Irigaray.
The book is organized around six forms of love:
erotic (Platonic), Christian, romantic, moral, mutual, and love as power.
Wagoner has read extensively in the philosophy-of-love literature;
and he presents the perspectives of several thinkers quite briefly;
but he has nothing original to add to the discussion.

Please suggest additional books to be included in this bibliography.
Send all comments to James Park: e-mail:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.