Continuing his anthropology of the human body, David Le Breton tackles the laughter that overcomes us, often at our expense. He shows that laughter has a perfectly valid place in human history and our own stories, and that such moments provide a necessary time-out from our daily lives. It is "through laughter that the world becomes a place for play once more, a sacred keep, and not a place of work," writes poet Octavio Paz –which is exactly what David Le Breton shows us in this book.