"From the bestselling author of The Shakespeare Wars and Explaining Hitler comes a stirring manifesto on love in the modern age. From one generation to the next, our understanding of love is constantly evolving, be it courtship, sex, or romantic relationships. The science of love is advancing, too, from the study of chemicals responsible for our behavior in love to the mining of data generated using dating apps. Now, more than ever, we find ourselves...

A collection of essays examines the themes of love and sex in literature, from Plato to modern fiction.

Acclaimed scholar Marilyn Yalom distills the central tenets of the Gallic gospel of love from her reading of the great French literary works, as well as from the people she has known and her own memories of France, examining almost a thousand years of divine culture in search of the intimate moments that reveal how the particularly French concept of l'amour has endured and evolved.