This book asks us to consider how and why the notion of random acts of kindness and the idea of kindness more generally have come to take a hold in many contemporary English-speaking societies. By introducing and mapping the contours of an emergent kindness industry, marshalling empirical research on contemporary framings of everyday kindness and theoretical resources from cultural sociology to the sociology of emotions and relationships, Brownlie makes the case for a critical sociological engagement with the idea of kindness. In doing so, she argues for kindness to be seen as a form of everyday enchantment - one that, like all enchantments, is ultimately ambivalent.

Julie Brownlie is Professor of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh