Not for ourselves alone : belonging in an age of loneliness / Jenny Robin Jones.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-245) and index.

Not For Ourselves Alone traces belonging in its broadest context - for people everywhere and through time. Jenny Robin Jones uses her own experience to track how, in the modern world, we develop a sense of belonging via our individual self. She finds belonging under attack as never before. The overblown cult of the individual can leave people lonely or alienated from those around them. Society offers salvation by shopping and the single-minded pursuit of profit, but a feeling of emptiness often persists. In conversation with friends and family members, Jenny records how those dear to her are finding their own ways to belonging in spite of difficult circumstances. In essence they are replacing the twentieth-century story of ourselves as either self-interested individuals or just herd animals by a narrative with kindness, compassion and inclusion at its heart.