The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days

Using a simple language and a clear style Mark Edmundson succeeds in re-creating the atmosphere of Freud's last days in Vienna and London in parallel with Hitler's rise in power. He also manages to offer some deep insights to Freud's main ideas and more specifically the ones in his last book "Moses and Monotheism. A highly readable and highly recommended book.

"The Death of Sigmund Freud" is a timely look at the last days of Freud since he was facing the march of Nazism, and since after 9-11, the US has tilted quite a bit to the Right, and it is wise to weigh into possible reasons to be concerned about tilting further, and a look from Freud's perspective is certainly interesting. Since anti-Semitism was rampant at the time, from the book, critics did say that psychoanalysis was right, just that it was a 'Jewish Science' only applying to Jews, an attempt to discredit it. Some of Freud's thoughts on the matter were: 1. Freud called the relationship crowds form with an absolute leader, erotic. Hitler, himself, in his speeches said that he made love to the German masses. Essentially, the crowds become hypnotized. Not that we are anywhere near such a situation, but one surely can notice a more 'patriotic' tone to many of the current presidential supporters and calling dissenters un-patriotic. 2. Inner conflict, between one's ego, id, and superego, is not only inevitable, but desirable to better modify behavior. Seeking some perpetual, peaceful state is dangerous because it is more likely to erupt into really bad behavior. So, public dissent is healthy and should be encouraged. 3. Freud, a Jew, recognized in monotheism, that the ability to internalize an invisible god prepares a person to think more abstractly. He saw Jews' long history with that as allowing Jews to distinguish themselves in math, sciences, law and literary arts, ways which effect some control over nature. Better to have some invisible god, than some human authoritarian one, be it political or some religious one who tries to have crowds focus on him or her. Freud felt that such thinking made Jews more likely to reject pageantry and less susceptible to elevating humans to god-like status, one reason for anti-Semitism to run rampant as Nazis knew they would meet resistance from Jews. Not that one should conclude that Judaism is superior, just that the internalizing of an invisible god is the important part of monotheism. 4. Rather than blame something about Germany, Japan or Italy for the rise of 20th century fascism, Freud felt that internally we are all fascists/fundamentalists, at least potentially. So, it is the inner conflict we need to use to overcome it. Once again, dissent is healthy. A very interesting book!

The Death of Sigmund Freud is a perfect companion book to the bigger Freud biographies ... a critical addition to the Freud section of your personal library on this fascinating man, doctor, thinker. The author begins the narrative just before Freud fled Vienna for England ... and it ends with Freud's pitiful death. The comparative exploration of the life of Hitler and Freud as Europe began to change is interesting and well constructed, but the real fascination is found in the details of Freud's working and personal life. I think the real punch in a biography is felt at the point in the book where you feel the subject's been fleshed out ... really captured by the author ... and Freud is now more real and understood in my mind than ever before. He's a mythic personality now. He was back in his day. Edmundson has rendered Freud's human, day-to-day life beautifully ... and what Freud professionally and personally believed, whether it's believable to us or not. Reviewer Todd Sentell, a Psychology major who graduated "Oh Lordy," is also the author of the hilarious social satire, TOONAMINT OF CHAMPIONS

How will the reading world receive a book whose star founded an unscientific science and advocated a complete atheism while often passing his days reading Milton's poetry or in contemplation of Moses? Favorably and, I hope, with a willingness to read through to the end. Edmundson brings to life some of the necessary tensions from the life of Sigmund Freud. In addition he plots the shocking rise of Hitler in an anti-Semitic Germany as Freud enters his brave decline and ghastly demise in war-weary London. This book moved me and many of the thoughts it shakes in me will stay for the coming months. Some of the remarks on fascistic tyranny and religious fundamentalism that Freud forecasted for our era may strike the reader as obvious or heavy-handed after Edmundson's clear presentation. However, the author also makes fascinating and generous lines when discussing Freud's final work > and its relationship to Judaism and other monotheisms. <br /> <br />Above all, Freud comes off as a teacher who taught his patients how to be self-critical and at the same time how to debunk or subvert patriarchal authority. It seems there is no eradicating the human lust for authority but perhaps as Edmundson suggests the teaching of skeptical tools and irony will be some protection. Freud's life and work form a riddle of sorts and it is his nearly Socratic knowledge of self that grants him the awareness and vitality to live and die with dignity as he lost his sight and hearing to the disintegration of his cancerous face. In Freud's death there is a life for our time.