Death by nostalgia: the strange history of homesickness
Most of us leave home eventually. Whether it's for school, work, or love, chances are you've had to pick up and relocate. And if you have, then you've felt it: homesickness. These days we're expected to brush it off and get over it. But there was a time when homesickness was taken VERY seriously.
Most of us leave home eventually. Whether it's for school, work, or love, chances are you've had to pick up and relocate. And if you have, then you've felt it: homesickness.
These days we're expected to brush it off and get over it. You have to be on the move! That's what the modern world is all about, right?
Well it hasn't always been this way. Susan Matt studies the history of homesickness and she says a hundred years ago it was taken very seriously.
Click Listen to find out the strange story of how Johannes Hofer first diagnosed "nostalgia," why "failure to launch" might not be as bad as we think it is, and how Capitalism changed the way we view homesickness.