New Books In French Studies

What makes us happy? What keeps us from being happy? Is restlessness the same thing as unhappiness? Is happiness something we should value or assume we can even find? These are some of the questions that Benjamin and Jenna Storey explore in their 2021 book, Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton UP, 2021). They lead us through the ideas on these matters of four French-language thinkers: Montaigne, Pascal, Rousseau, and Tocqueville. The book begins by examining the relaxed view of the human condition that Montaigne (1533–1592) took that has been called his, “nonchalance.” It moves on to the stern, forbidding view of Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), who felt that everyone was miserable and that it was folly to deny it and the only answer was God—and finding God was a grueling quest. They then take on Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), who felt that everyone was good at heart but that society tended to stifle that goodness and deform moral character. They conclude with Alexis de Tocquevill