The central argument of this book is that emotion is meaningful and meaning is emotional. The modern world is forcing us to understand emotion in order to cope with new problems such as road rage and epidemic levels of depression, as well as age-old problems such as homicide, genocide and racial tension. This book draws on scholarly research to address, explain and legitimize the role that emotion plays in everyday interaction and in many of the pressing social, moral, and cultural issues that we face today.

The central argument of this book is that emotion is meaningful and meaning is emotional. The modern world is forcing us to understand emotion in order to cope with new problems such as road rage and epidemic levels of depression, as well as age-old problems such as homicide, genocide and racial tension. This book draws on scholarly research to address, explain and legitimize the role that emotion plays in everyday interaction and in many of the pressing social, moral, and cultural issues that we face today.