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The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Edmundson
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 347673
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1596914300
Dewey Decimal Number: 300
EAN: 9781596914308
ASIN: 1596914300
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
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Product Description
“The Death of Sigmund Freud offers a compelling redescription of why the founder of psychoanalysis retains his relevance today…a stirring account of Freud's final months in Vienna…This is the disruptive legacy of Freud's last year, and Edmundson has found the words to bring it alive today.”—Los Angeles Times When Hitler invaded Austria in March of 1938, Sigmund Freud was among the 175,000 Viennese Jews dreading Nazi occupation. Though Freud was near the end of his life—eighty-one years old, battling cancer of the jaw—and Hitler’s rise on the world stage was just beginning, the fates of these two historical giants were nonetheless intertwined. In this gripping and revelatory historical narrative, Mark Edmundson traces Hitler and Freud’s oddly converging lives, then zeroes in on Freud’s escape to London, where he published his last and most provocative book, Moses and Monotheism. By taking a close look at Freud’s last years—years that coincided with the onset of the Second World War—Edmundson probes Freud’s prescient ideas about the human proclivity to embrace fascism in politics and fundamentalism in religion. At a time when these forces are once again shaping world events, The Death of Sigmund Freud suggests new and vital ways to view Freud’s legacy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
A very interesting book! April 11, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
"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!
Some Notes on German Usage January 26, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is not intended as a complete review, as I have nothing to add to the other reviews which appear in this space. However, in what is otherwise a thought-provoking and inspiring book, there are some lapses in German usage which are a little disconcerting. Nouns in German always capitalize the first letter, so it is a bit wierd to see Hitler referred to as "the fuhrer" rather than "the Fuhrer". (And the capitalization would give a better sense of his own self-importance.) Also, in spite of the fact that recent spelling modifications now render the combination "oe" as a single "o" with an umlaut, this does not usually apply to dead historical personages such as Goering or Goethe.
A Great Introduction to Freud December 14, 2007
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
OK, who were the most influential people of the 20th century? Einstein, Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Freud. You can jockey the order, probably add Hitler depending on your definition of "influential", but that's the short list.
Freud's life as a writer/thinker, like Churchill's and Einstein's, was very long. If you want to learn something about this giant, you definitely want to start slowly. THE DEATH OF SIGMUND FREUD is a great way to get a feel for both the man and what he stood for. Mark Edmundson picks up Freud, after a brief introduction about Vienna in 1909, in 1938. Freud is 81, in poor health, and about to come under Adolf Hitler's Anchluss.
Edmundson, in this short volume, gives you a great feel for how Sigmund Freud lived: how his study looked, his industriousness, his love of dogs, his relationship with his daughter Anna, his relationships with his disciples, what Freud's Vienna was like, what he collected, his (ultimately dangerous) love of cigars, etc. Even if the book did nothing more than accumulate these bits of Freud's life in 1938 and 1939, it would be wonderful, because what can an author do beyond transporting the reader to a place and time? And what a place and time! Freud, Hitler, Vienna, Anchluss.
The author also gives readers a great short course on some of Sigmund Freud's work. As certain subjects dominate the last year of Freud's life - the rise of Nazism, his relationship with his daughter, the need for conflict in his life to create brilliant work, his enjoyment and suspicion of fame, his need to shock and create controversy (to name a few) - Edmundson describes how Freud wrote about those matters, quoting from and summarizing Sigmund's most famous theories and ideas, usually from works created decades before.
Even as an introduction to Sigmund Freud, this book is incomplete (though by design). But it gives you a taste as well as a feeling you're following Freud at the end of his life, trying to make sense of it all. You may find yourself, like me, back on Amazon.com looking for a comprehensive biography of Freud and ordering translations of some of his classic works. I'd say that's a pretty high compliment for the book and author.
Freud and Hitler November 26, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Outstanding book....couldn't put it down. As a psychology teacher this book really put into perspective Freud and his relationship to Hitler and many other prominent leaders of the time. Historically, it brought together so many of the major movers and shakers of Hitler's quest for power. Highly recommend for those interested in Freud or Hitler.
THERAPEUTIC November 16, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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
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