The Pursuit of Human Well-Being The Untold Global History

“This is an immensely important milestone in the global cultural history of wellbeing, and it will be a superb resource for anyone wanting a comprehensive global overview of philosophies, concepts, and socio-economic and political histories relating to wellbeing, as well as a rich source of basic information on contemporary objective and subjective indicators. … As an extremely ambitious collection offering encyclopedic coverage of historical and contemporary information relevant to wellbeing worldwide, this is impressive.” (Neil Thin, Margarita Tarragona, Paul Wong, Rebecca Jarden, Jonathan Bartholomaeus and Aaron Jarden, International Journal of Wellbeing, Vol. 7 (1), June, 2017)

Richard J. Estes is Professor Emeritus of Social Work and Social Policy in the School of Social Policy & Practice of the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in international and comparative social welfare, social policy, and social development. He has been the recipient of many awards and prizes for his contributions to comparative social development. In addition to the present volume, his books include The Social Progress of Nations, 1984; Trends in World Social Development, 1988; Health Care and the Social Services,1984; Towards a Social Development Strategy for the Asia and Pacific Region (with Edward Van Roy), 1992; Social Development in Hong Kong: The Unfinished Agenda, 2005; Medical, Legal, and Social Science Aspects of Child Sexual Exploitation, 2007; Advancing Quality of Life in a Turbulent World, 2007; Social Progress in Islamic Societies: Social, Political, Economic, and Ideological Challenges (with Habib Tiliouine, Dordrecht NL: Springer), in preparation; and Human Well-Being: The Untold Global History (with M. Joseph Sirgy, Dordrecht HL: Springer), in preparation, 2015.



M. Joseph Sirgy is a management psychologist (PhD, University of Massachusetts, 1979), Professor of Marketing, and Virginia Real Estate Research Fellow at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has published extensively in the areas of marketing, business ethics, and quality of life (QOL). He is the author/editor of many books related to quality-of-life and well-being research. In 1998, he received the Distinguished Fellow Award from ISQOLS. In 2003, ISQOLS honored him as the Distinguished QOL Researcher for research excellence and a record of lifetime achievement in QOL research. In 2012 he was awarded the EuroMed Management Research Award for outstanding achievements and groundbreaking contributions to well-being and quality-of-life research.