Robert A. Schneider's The Return of Resentment: The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of a Political Emotion offers a sweeping survey of resentment both as an emotion and an object of philosophical consideration. It brings together a wide variety of writings on resentment by various political thinkers, as well as mix of historical and contemporary examples of where resentment might be at play within communal and political processes. The book advances not one argument but multiple interrelated ones. These include the proposition that resentment should not be casually deployed as a label to dismiss the political sentiments of disagreeable others; that resentment has significance as a political and moral emotion that, despite its reputation as something pernicious that can consume its host, also can alert and motivate political actors to address wrongs; and that the modern emergence of broad social expectations such as those of equality can also lead to increased resentment from those who find such expectations unmet. It is a book that offers much food for thought and discussion, one that is both easy to read and extremely stimulating.

Because it is doing multiple things simultaneously, the book speaks to those interested not just in resentment per se but also its intersections with history, political theory, and the study of emotion, as well as contemp