This volume draws together the work of a diverse range of thinkers and researchers to address the question of happiness critically, using a wide variety of theoretical and empirical methodologies. Broadening the discussion beyond what might be considered highly individual and insular conceptualisations of happiness, often based on purely positivist approaches to the subject, authors raise questions about the nature of individual and collective anxieties that might underpin the current emphasis on happiness, and the ideological or governmental ends that might be served by the framing of happiness within psychology and economics. With attention to the ways in which individuals understand and pursue happiness within their daily lives, Critical Happiness Studies highlights different theoretical paradigms that demonstrate the role of power in producing specific conceptualisations of happiness and, consequently, how they frame individual self-understanding or subjectivities, and (re)shape political problems. The collection makes available a set of critical resources for addressing the development of a powerful set of cultural, political and scientific discourses that have loomed large since the closing decade of the 20th century. A call for the establishment of a body of work in critical happiness studies, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities interested in the age-old problem of happiness.