A01=Katie Barclay
Abelard
aesthetics
art
Author_Katie Barclay
Burke
Category=JB
Christianity
culture
Danesi
Eloise
emotions
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
Harvey
history
Laqueur
lips
love
medieval
painting
passion
politics
power
queer history
religion
romance
Rosenwein
sex
Simon May
western
Product details
- ISBN 9781836392613
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 01 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Reaktion Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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This book tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: the kiss. Richly illustrated, it explores a millennium of kisses, asking how and why the kiss has retained its power over the centuries, and what it might mean today. From the furtive kisses of fated lovers Heloise and Abelard to The Godfather’s ‘kiss of death’, Katie Barclay shows how the kiss can be romantic, peaceful, transgressive, intimate, erotic and more. There are kisses that are bad ideas, dangerous kisses and funny ones. New kisses are invented and old ones fall out of favour. While the kiss continues to change, Barclay shows that we kiss fewer people, and less often, than we used to.
The Kiss reveals a cultural inheritance transmitted in story and song, art and literature, and through the everyday kisses that we receive from our parents, or reserve for our lovers; when we kiss, we kiss with the weight of history.
Katie Barclay is a historian of love and relationships, who has published widely in the field of the history of emotions, gender history, law and family life. She is the author of seven books, including Loneliness in World History (2025). She is Professor of History at Macquarie University, Sydney.
