Like an island of rock in the seas of sentimental popular literature, Armstrong's philosophical analysis of love challenges the beguiling simplisms of romantic fervor. Under Armstrong's scrutiny, the love depicted so memorably by Byron (the type of love dominant for centuries in Western conceptions of the emotion) reduces to nothing but a short-lived though intense feeling, lacking the substance necessary to sustain a lifelong relationship. Beyond the gender-specific limits set by evolutionary biology, Armstrong probes the refinements that can make love last. Because those refinements entangle him in tensions and conflicting ideals, Armstrong approaches love as a "pandoxist," seeking to synthesize different and even antithetical perspectives. He thus tests Aristotle's requirement for virtue in the beloved against a Christian love extending even to the cruel and dissolute. Though he soberly acknowledges the many ways love can collapse in despair, Armstrong holds out substantive hope that--when cultivated with kindness and humility--love can endure. A rare work of philosophy that speaks clearly to general readers on a topic of universal interest.