Subject: Philosophy

Conversation would be extremely limited if we stopped moaning. But whereas we once complained about the things that really matter, now we are most likely to be stirred by late trains and bad television programmes. Moreover, often our complaints are misguided: people often protest, on the one hand, that political parties ought to bicker less; but on the other, that we are cheated because there is nothing to choose between them. Isn’t there something serious to say about complaint?

Starting off with God’s protests to Adam and Eve and working through the French and American revolutions to the war on Iraq, this book will examine what we complain about, why we do so, the different kinds of complaints we make, why men and women complain about different things, why we complain less than Americans, and whether we should complain differently.

You can’t complain about that!

‘He talks great sense on the positive effects of our modern grievance culture, and has a good line in aphorisms.’

— The Times