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Heal Thyself: A History of Self-Help

Heal Thyself: A History of Self-Help: Episode 2: Healthier

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Episode 2: Healthier

Healthier

BBC Radio 4 - Heal Thyself: A History of Self-Help, Healthier

Robin Ince looks at the early modern and 19-century self-helpers.

Robin Ince looks at how enlightenment self-help thinking took old medical and philosophical ideas and re-packaged them for contemporary society.

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The learned men of the scientific revolution - the likes of Wren, Hooke, Boyle and Newton - were obsessed by how their daily routines and diets affected their moods and ability to work.
In the 16th century diets, and "regimens", were published in medical texts printed in English, rather than Latin. Previously, medical theory was more or less only published in Latin, and only aimed at medical practitioners.

Now, many more could read up and do their homework.

Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" went to many editions in its time and was popular for its style as much as its authority. It was an attempt to digest all that was known about wellbeing into one massive book, but it spread well beyond its stated aims.

George Cheyne's "Essay on Health and Long Life" over a century later also sold well and was a call for moderation "in immoderate times".

But it was the Industrial Revolution and growth of cities that really led to the rise of the genre.
Samuel Smiles' "Self-Help", published the same year as, and out-selling, Darwin's "On The Origin of Species", was the literary sensation of aspirational, reform-minded Victorian Britain.
Its suggestion, that if you read and followed the examples of the successful contained within, you too could lift yourself, would have far-reaching consequences, not least in the United States.

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Robin Ince explores our timeless fascination with the self-help shelf.

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Heal Thyself: A History of Self-Help

Episode 2: Healthier

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