Customer Reviews

Freud: A Life for Our Time

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This is a scholarly work, full of intricate details about the life and times of the father of the psychoanalytic movement. Everything, from Freud's private life to his theoretical views is discussed. Gay debunks many myths that surround Freud, and everywhere the enormous amount of research that has gone into the work shows through. For those interested in the psychoanalytic movement, and for those who want to know more about the man who changed our world-view, this is a definite must-read.

This biography on Sigmund Freud proves to be a total integration of all aspects of Freud's life. Everything from his psycho-analysis works to his family life, Jewish background to the political climate that surrounded his life were all integrated in this book in one massive volume. The book proves to be well written and relatively objective in outlook as the author maintain an even kneel toward his subject. I found the book to be quite informative and full of interesting insights on Freud's motives and actions.

It seem to the author that Freud's life really didn't start until he published his famous book, Interpretation of Dreams. Roughly a hundred pages covered his life prior to that and rest of 550 pages covered his life after that. There is another 150 pages of source materials and index just to let you know how thick this book can be. (Hardback)

It should be warned that due to an overwhelming amount of information provided in this book, most of the first time readers into Freud's life would probably suffer from information overload. Many of the technical terms used in Freud's work were not meant for casual readers. This biography is quite complex in nature and content. I would recommend reading couple of shorter and simpler biographies on Freud before moving up to this book. If not, you will just slog through this book like being stuck in a giant swamp of information.

Peter Gay has given us yet another intelligent and stimulating work. The book was highly praised in a review and although I would have never thought it possible, the writing transported one back to the Europe of the early 20th century. In many aspects Freud was a typical bourgeois Jew - intellectual, deeply opinionated, haughty, wealthy, well-mannered and hard-working.

His group-breaking advances are explained in detail as well as his ideas on several modern practices he patented - therapy, the id, ego and superego, guilt, eroticism. It was the latter on which he rested his claim for in his exploration of sexuality he thinks he has discovered the core of each of us. We are, he states, sexual creatures and all our decisions and thought processes are geared around that fact.

The triune history - Freud's, psychotherapy, Europe - combine to form a dazzling work in which the author shows a real empathy for his subject. One of the best around.

This is a fairly detailed and comprehensive biography by someone who is an expert on Freud and the Victorian era .It gives a fairly elaborate account of Freud's ideas on psychoanalysis as they germinated and evolved over the course of his lifetime .Freud's disagreements with his disciples___notably Jung___are also presented in a fairly balanced manner.However this book gives a rather short shrift to Freud , the man , himself .You do not come away from this account with sparkling new insights into Freud's complicated character____which after all is the purpose of a good biography . The book therefore lacks the sweep and breadth of scope that we would expect from a biography of the great man.Peter Gay gives a good , factual account of Freud's life but it lacks the panache and elan that one would expect from the life of one of the seminal figures of our times .

This is an excellent short introduction - yes, short - to the life and work of Sigmund Freud. In recent years, Freud has been subject to endless ridicule and reassessment, but there is no doubt that his mind created a intellectual whirlwind that we are still living within. Think of our age's obsession with sex and you gain a glimmer of the impact of this man, who looked beneath the polite surface to the dark underpinnings. It is fascinating to read the life of the man who changed we think about ourselves forever.

In particular, I admired his scrupulous work habits and his intensity at task. Gay has written a daunting and impressive biography. I would have liked more information about the imapct of his ideas and the way they are received today, but then again that may have filled another book. Apart from that, I cannot fault the research that went into this book and the style with which it is written.

If you have minimal knowledge about the father of psychoanlaysis, or if you hold strong opinions about the "Prof" as his students and colleagues referred to him deferentially and affectionally, this work by Peter Gay will highlight the peaks of Freud's dazzling insights, and provide plenty of background for his all too human failings. Freud is presented as a man struggling with issues of family, career, and the inevitablity of death. Gay is able to condense and summarize key Freudian concepts and place them in the context of the life and cultural time of the father of psychoanalysis. For students of psychology as well as observers of our current cultural and political delusions, Gay neatly captures the details as well as the broad scope of Freud's shadow on the 20th Century and beyond.

Disagree with two of the reviewers below: Gay is not unbearly biased in favor of Freud, book is not too much for casual dabblers in the subject.

First, one could hardly expect a six hundred page biography of Freud to be authored by someone who hates the man. Important to be realistic about who writes books in the first place.

Second, Freud was a prolific writer, and the book doesn't shy away from in depth analysis, so really it's like two three hundred page books. Now, if that's too much Freud for you, you're probably not that interested in the first place.

I like to read biographies of thinkers who left behind copious amount of published work. That way, it's easier to get a sense of what you want to read (if anything) by the author.

Because much of Freud's work revolves around family life, his family life is more then usually interesting. It's impossible to appreciate the originality of Freud's thought without having a firm context for HIS everyday life.

This book provides a balanced reading of Freud's controverial life. I found the bad to be included as much as the good. Freud's influence on the 20th century has been so profound that even if you completely disagree with the man (over, say, his attitude towards women), it is still rewarding to learn about his thought.

Freud's psychology is a complex web that Gay untangles as well as Freud could have himself. There are diferent Freuds, conventional and controversial. Sometimes in honest scientific research, sometimes involved in power games and his enormous egotism.

Freud only became famous after the age of fifty, and the build up to this is as interesting as what happens afterwards. All his important writings are discussed, from the seminal 'Interpretation of Dreams' to his bizarre final work, 'Moses and Monotheism'

Gay says that he wrote the book 'neither to denounce nor to flatter but to understand'. If you are prepared to give a lot of energy (the book is 700 pages of dense material) to reading the biography, you will be rewarded with a brilliantly detailed portrait of Freud.

Peter Gay's Freud: A Life for our Time is a piece of immense scholarship. At no point did I get the impression that I was reading shoddy writing, but rather Gay's erudition and craftsmanship are evident throughout the work. Be prepared to make a significant commitment in time, as Freud's life receives a very thorough treatment in this 864 pg tome. The book is primarily biographical, focusing on many different aspects of Freud's life. You will get some exposure to psychoanalysis and Freud's other ideas, but this is not a piece of intellectual history. Anyone looking for such a treatment of Sigmund Freud's writings should look elsewhere. Still the book is masterful in what it sets out to accomplish, I would certainly consider reading some of Peter Gay's other works.

This book was recommended to me for reference and follow-up reading by a college instructor in a master's level counseling course. I am still reading other required texts so I do not have a personal opinion yet. However, it arrived on time and in excellent condition. Thank you, very much.