The history of emotions : an introduction The history of emotions is one of the fastest growing fields in current historical debate and this is the first book length introduction to the field synthesizing the current research and offering direction for future study. The History of Emotions is organized around the debate between social constructivist and universalist theories of emotion that has shaped most emotions research in a variety of disciplines for more than a hundred years: socialconstructivists believe that emotions are largely learned and subject to historical change while universalists insist on the timelessness and pan