Book review of Love and Society. Special Social Forms and the Master Emotion by Swen Seebach. A sociological study of love: Swen Seebach’s Love and Society

Abstract

Love and Society by Swen Seebach is a sociological study of love at its best. In recent years there has been a global boom in the scientific studies of love (García-Andrade 2014). Why? How has love become so crucial in sciences as it has in our lives? This book intends to understand why and how love has come center stage from a sociological point of view. And I emphasize this is a sociological endeavor because the question at hand is what is love’s contribution to social cohesion, how do we bond with each other when we are ‘in love’ and why it is so central in our societies, contrary to other historical periods. Also, and differently from other theoretical texts, the author goes hand in hand with empirical research on love to illustrate what people say about their love bonds: “…nearly 100 qualitative interviews with people from different European countries, with different sexual orientations, and with different social backgrounds…” (p. 13, n.1)