Labor of Love

"An addictive and accessible read."—Amy Finnerty, The New York Times

"Weigel is best when dismantling pop theories through the ages. She brilliantly eviscerates the self-help industry for stoking 'mutual mystification' between the sexes, and unearths intriguing continuities like the way technological advances (including the invention of the automobile) have always led to hand-wringing over the moral bankruptcy of youth . . . Fascinating."—Jenna Wortham, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] perceptive and wide-ranging investigation into the history of dating in America."—Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker

"The lack of serious conversation about dating has left Weigel with rich territory to explore, and she makes excellent use of it . . . [and her] deliciously incisive observations run throughout the book, making it a thoroughly enjoyable read . . . Weigel presents an insightful analysis of a topic that has largely been left to hucksters and scolds. By commodifying our deepest emotions, Weigel shows how the 'experts' turned dating into a job requiring calculation and deception, but not much love. Maybe it’s time to give notice."—Sara Eckel, The Washington Post

"[A] sprightly, gently feminist history . . . offer[ing] useful perspectives on dating as both an art and a historical construct."—Julia M. Kline, The Chicago Tribune

"[A] riveting chronicle of courtship in modern America."—Entertainment Weekly

"Weigel successfully crafts a theorization of the 'date' as a longstanding site of morphing relations of reproductive labor . . . always show[ing] compellingly that the slippage between romantic and pecuniary matters is altogether nothing new."—Sophie Lewis, Blindfield Journal

"Labor of Love is remarkable at many levels: Formally, with its interweaving of theory, personal anecdote and social history. Politically, the way it deftly manages to say hugely important things about power and money that so often get left out of the discourse on love. And most of all, it's elegantly written, fun and plain hugely readable."—Alain de Botton, author of The Course of Love

“Moira Weigel’s Labor of Love rescues the subject of dating from its Trojan horse of triviality. It illuminates the social stakes of feelings too often misunderstood as private or peripheral: romantic desire, romantic frustration, and the shame of caring too much about either one. Witty, lively, and deftly—refreshingly—attentive to largely untold histories, Labor of Love has constructed a dazzling tour of the public infrastructure of our private lives. You will never swipe right the same way again.”—Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

“Labor of Love is a brilliant history of courtship, love, and sex that is also a brilliant investigation into profound changes in the nature of American work, leisure, consumer society, education, and city life over the twentieth-century and into the new millennium. Elegantly written, gratifyingly clear-eyed, and sharply funny, it restores the essential strangeness of dating, while expertly navigating the fraught contemporary debates over its meaning.”—Nikil Saval, author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace