Kiss: A History of Passion and Power

“[A] rich and fascinating history.”—Tiffany Watt-Smith, The Guardian

Seductively illustrated, an investigation of the power of the kiss across a thousand years of history and culture.

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 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. The meanings our kisses engender and the emotions they produce reflect 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.