Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears

An unprecedented look at why we cry, exploring the biological, psychological and cultural aspects of tears. Lutz probes the views of poets, scholars, scientists, anthropologists and sociologists to find the ways in which the meaning of tears differs through time and place. In this wide-ranging and study, Tom Lutz looks at the ways people have understood weeping from the earliest known representations of tears in the fourteenth century BC to the tears found in today's films. Drawing on works of literature, philosophy, art, and science from the writings of Plato and Darwin to the paintings of Picasso to modern medical journals, he unearths the multiple meanings and uses of tears.

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