Spoilt Rotten : The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality

In this perceptive and witty book, Theodore Dalrymple unmasks the hidden sentimentality that is suffocating public life.

Under the multiple guises of raising children well, caring for the underprivileged, assisting the less able and doing good generally, we are achieving quite the opposite-for the single purpose of feeling good about ourselves.

Dalrymple takes the reader on both an entertaining and at times shocking journey through social, political, popular and literary issues as diverse as child tantrums, aggression, educational reform, honour killings, sexual abuse, Che Guevara, Eric Segal, Romeo and Juliet, the McCanns, public emotions and the role of suffering, and shows the perverse results when we abandon logic in favour of the cult of feeling.

Drawing on his long experience of working with thousands of criminals and the mentally disturbed, Dalrymple proves that we can only hope to make a difference - if we start with thinking well.