This book provides a comprehensive ''state of the art'' assessment of the sociology of emotions drawing upon work from scholars of international stature, as well as newer writers in the field. Acknowledgements, Introduction: Emotions in Social Life: Mapping the Sociological Terrain, Critical Perspectives on Emotions, The Sociology of Emotion as a Way of Seeing, Emotion and Communicative Action: Habermas and Linguistic Philosophy and Existentialism, The Limitations of Cultural Constructionism in the Study of Emotion, The Socio genesis of Emotion: A Historical Sociology, The Mediation of Emotional Experience, ''Bored and Blaze'': Television and the Emotions and Georg Simmel, In Search of the Inner Child: Co-Dependency and Gender in a Cyberspace Community, Emotions and Cyberspace and the ''Virtual'' Body: A Critical Appraisal, Emotions and the Body Through the Life-Course, Ageing and the Emotions, Sexuality and Intimacy and Personal Relations, Masculinity and Violence and Emotional Life, Emotions and Health, Emotions and Pain and Gender, Index.