A national bestseller "A magisterial contribution to the history of ideas. A fresh, illuminating perspective on one of the pivotal figures of our time." —J. Anthony Lukas "[This] remarkable biography… briskly traces the story of Freud's life and education, deftly weaving the familiar narrative with a style that makes it seem fresh and lively." —Chicago Tribune
Élisabeth Roudinesco’s bold reinterpretation of Sigmund Freud is a biography for the twenty-first century—a sympathetic yet impartial appraisal of a genius admired but misunderstood in his time and ours. Alert to tensions in his character and thought, she views Freud less as a scientific thinker than as an interpreter of civilization and culture.
The life and work of Sigmund Freud continue to fascinate general and professional readers alike. Joel Whitebook here presents the first major biography of Freud since the last century, taking into account recent developments in psychoanalytic theory and practice, gender studies, philosophy, cultural theory, and more. Offering a radically new portrait of the creator of psychoanalysis, this book explores the man in all his complexity alongside an interpretation of his theories that cuts through the stereotypes that surround him. The development of Freud's thinking is addressed not only in the context of his personal life, but also in that of society and culture at large, while the impact of his thinking on subsequent issues of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and social theory is fully examined. Whitebook demonstrates that declarations of Freud's obsolescence are premature, and, with his clear and engaging style, brings this vivid figure to life in compelling and readable fashion.
In reasoned progression he outlined core psychoanalytic concepts, such as repression, free association and libido. Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey. Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions. Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work --along with a note on the individual volume--by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.
From the master of Freud debunkers, the book that definitively puts an end to the myth of psychoanalysis and its creator Since the 1970s, Sigmund Freud’s scientific reputation has been in an accelerating tailspin—but nonetheless the idea persists that some of his contributions were visionary discoveries of lasting value. Now, drawing on rarely consulted archives, Frederick Crews has assembled a great volume of evidence that reveals a surprising new Freud: a man who blundered tragicomically in his dealings with patients, who in fact never cured anyone, who promoted cocaine as a miracle drug capable of curing a wide range of diseases, and who advanced his career through falsifying case histories and betraying the mentors who had helped him to rise. The legend has persisted, Crews shows, thanks to Freud’s fictive self-invention as a master detective of the psyche, and later through a campaign of censorship and falsification conducted by his followers. A monumental biographical study and a slashing critique, Freud: The Making of an Illusion will stand as the last word on one of the most significant and contested figures of the twentieth century.
Compares and contrasts the beliefs of two famous thinkers, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, on topics ranging from the existence of God and morality to pain and suffering.
Freud's development of psychoanalysis is one of the great fault lines of twentieth-century cultural history. The field as such provides one of the great professional dramas of our time: a classic struggle between a new, vital idea and the ignorance, prejudice and refusal that so often attend major breakthroughs and innovations. Helen Puner's biography is far more than a professional appreciation. It is the story of a complex, by no means flawless individual, whose personal characteristics helped sow the seeds of controversy as well as ultimately establish a new field. Upon its initial appearance, the Herald Tribune identified the book as "the first authoritative and profoundly perceptive biography of the man who more than any other has shaped the thinking of the Western World." It was summarized as a "brilliant performance, done without fear."Puner did precisely what irritated Freud most: probe the sources, social no less than personal, religious no less than scientific, that made Freud such a towering figure. Dorothy Canfield caught the spirit of this work when she noted that in this book, we see Freud "as we never saw him before, as most of us never knew he was, a rigidly virtuous, deeply troubled, upright, dutiful Jewish son, husband and father. We see him tracing the significance of clues he hit upon in the practice of medicine, and then fit these clues into the bewildering mastery of human behavior."In his Foreword, Erich Fromm indicates that Puner looks at Freud with genuine admiration, but without idolatry. "She understands his own psychological problems and has a full appreciation of the pseudo-religious nature of the movement which he created." And the late Ernest Becker, in The Denial of Death, seconded this estimate by calling the Helen Walker Puner effort "a brilliant critical biography." This new edition contains a new introduction by Paul Roazen; with this, and the appreciation of the author by her husband, Samuel Puner, we can better locate the author of the book as well as the famous object of her analysis.
