The Forgotten Art of Love

Descriere

Cardiologist and Johns Hopkins University professor Armin Zadeh, MD, PhD's THE FORGOTTEN ART OF LOVE revisits psychologist Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving, a work that has fascinated the author for decades. This new book examines love in its complex entirety -- biological, philosophical, historical, religious, and socio-economic -- to fill in critical voids in Fromm's classic work and to provide a contemporary understanding, based on science and philosophy, of love. The author's goal is to help readers understand themselves better and improve their relationships.

A cardiologist and physician-scientist by training, Dr. Zadeh learned first-hand of the close relationship between heart disease and the state of the mind. Happy people get less sick while discontent with life is linked to higher frequency of illness. To attend to a patient with heart disease, a physician must look at both the body and the mind. Drawing from his clinical experience, Dr. Zadeh used his skills in the analysis and synthesis of comprehensive, complex data to formulate new concepts and hypotheses on well-being. At the core of the human condition is love. But love -- as Dr. Zadeh points out -- is widely misunderstood which makes it less attainable for many.

Born to a psychologist and forensic psychiatrist, he grew up influenced by the classic concepts of love authored by Erich Fromm. After years of practicing and teaching medicine, he returned to this classic work, recognizing the accomplishments of Fromm but also seeing the limitations of his ideas for a new century of readers. Dr. Zadeh set out to expand on Fromm's concepts and brought them into the context of contemporary knowledge and to build upon them to establish a new vision of the human existence. Tested by a wide online readership, he found a balance in discussing complex content with scientific depth in a way that is understandable and accessible to a wide audience.

The Forgotten Art of Love picks up where Fromm left off many decades ago, arguing for a more complex vision of love than what is most commonly assumed today. Going beyond Fromm's hypotheses, Dr. Zadeh's book expands the discussions of love on the basis of contemporary insights into physiology and evolution. He attempts to disentangle love from commonly associated human instincts, such as lust and attachment, and explores the concept of love in the light of society, philosophy, and religion. Although each person has to test these principles for themselves and discover how they impact their lives, Dr. Zadeh makes a case for a systematic approach to educating our society, particularly our children, on the concepts of love. The questions explored include:

- What is love and what is it not?

- Why is love so central to our existence?

- How can we achieve and maintain love?

- How does romantic love differ from any other love?

- What does sex have to do with love?

- How does our society influence our view on love?

- How does love influence our world?

- What does love have to do with religion?

- How do we help the cause of love?