In In Pursuit of Happiness, cultural historian Darrin McMahon offers a brilliant summation of the history of happiness, and its evolution from divine gift to natural human entitlement. Central to the development of Christianity, ideas of happiness assumed their modern form during the Enlightenment. McMahon follows this great search through to the present day, showing how our modern quest for the holy grail of happiness continues to generate new forms of pleasure, but also, paradoxically, new forms of pain. Perfect happiness, like the holy grail, may exist only in our minds, and McMahon helps us discover that as for Cervantes knight of sad countenance, Quixote, to travel is better than to arrive.