Anatomy of Fear

The keen-sighted Hobbes wrote a portentious phrase that we should all repeat: "The day I was born, my mother gave birth to twins: My fear and I. This is how the journey to the land of fear begins, with the appearence of instinctive and pathological terror; the author investigates why some people are more fearful than others; analyses the domestic, the political and the religious root of fears; and, finally, takes a look at the most efficient therapies to fight against fear. The reader will be accompanied on their journey by neurologists and psychologists, but also by writers who are experts in fear: Kafka, Rilke, Camus, Graham Greene, Georges Bernanos... Up to this point, this is a book of psychology. But the tone of the book changes when a phenomenon appears that goes beyond psychology and separates us from animals : courage. The brave person feels fear, but acts as he should "in spite of it". It is natural that all cultures have admired courage. We would feel so free if we weren't so scared!, Thus, the book that starts as a study on fear ends up becoming a treatise on courage.