A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-first Century

"A fierce and lively book. . . .This is one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way." — New York Times Book Review

“A rousing defense of imprudent ardor and romantic excess. . . . It’s difficult to deny that [Nehring] is on to something.” — Wall Street Journal

A thinking person’s “guide” that makes the case for love in an age both cynical about and fearful of strong passion. Bold and challenging, A Vindication of Love has inspired praise and controversy, and brilliantly reinvigorated the romance debate. A perfect choice for readers of Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life and Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

In an age of emotional correctness and the cult of safety, what have we lost by trying to make love bland?

• A Provocative Philosophy of Love: This is no gentle guide. Nehring argues for reclaiming love as a "high-risk adventure"—a force that is ecstatic and dangerous, transcendent and even demonic.
• An Unflinching Cultural Critique: A direct challenge to the modern "cult of safe love" and an examination of how feminism developed an anti-romantic bias that discredits strong passion.
• Love as Transgression and Heroism: Drawing on centuries of art and thought, this book explores the vital roles that inequality, transgression, absence, and even failure play in the greatest love stories.
• Literary and Historical Depth: A brilliant tour through the lives and minds of figures like Plato, Mary Wollstonecraft, Dante, and Simone de Beauvoir to build a powerful new case for romantic excess.

In the twenty-first century, political correctness, cynicism, prag-matism, and the commodification of sex have reduced romantic love to a discredited myth or a recreational sport—"a cause for embarrassment," says Cristina Nehring. In A Vindication of Love, Nehring wrests romantic love from the clutches of retrograde feminists and cutting-edge capitalists, thrill-seeking convenience shoppers and safe-sex moralists. With help from lovers ranging from Heloise and Abelard to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Nehring celebrates the wild, irreverent, and uncompromising models of love we have inherited—as she rediscovers romantic love's fearless and heroic provenance, and challenges readers to demand partnerships that fully engage body, heart, and mind.

“This is the most intrepid, original, and enjoyable book on love to come out of a shiksa in twenty-five hundred years. Invigorating, life-affirming, toughly argued, and deeply felt.” - Gary Shteyngart

“A fierce and lively book.... one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way.” - New York Times Book Review

“A sharp new polemic.... A Vindication of Love makes an ardent and engaging case for attraction in its rawest form—where lust, emotion and the intellect converge.” - NPR

“An eloquent plea for romantic daring and idealism…A bold, high-flying polemic which sets out to do nothing less than reclaim romantic love for our times.” - Ingrid Norton, Open Letter Monthly

“An ambitious polemic. . . . A fresh reading of literary and historical figures. . . . Nehring’s paean to unconventional ecstasy is a bracing reminder of how narrow and orthodox our vision of love has become.” - Slate

“A rousing defense of imprudent ardor and romantic excess. . . . It’s difficult to deny that she’s on to something. . . . Ms. Nehring reveals (and revels in) the rich inner agonies of the love-tossed.” - Wall Street Journal

“A wild appreciation of men and women . . . who passionately and fearlessly and recklessly redefine romance. . . . The passionate creatures who refuse to play it safe and settle down now have an intelligent, like-minded advocate.” - Jessa Crispin, The Smart Set

“A fierce and lively book. . . . [Nehring] brings to life riveting stories and offers creative interpretations that, taken together, challenge current convention. . . . Nehring is writing in a previous mold, in the lost tradition of the Simone de Beauvoirs and Mary Wollstonecrafts that existed before the clotted irony, the obligatory, cool self-mockery, the endlessly indulgent self-deflation so popular today. . . . This is one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way.” - New York Times Book Review