Freud: The Making of an Illusion [is] a...stake driven into its subject's cold, cold heart...Crews is an attractively uncluttered stylist, and he has an amazing story to tell.

A powerful and thorough takedown of Sigmund Freud.

A riveting, masterful biography of Freud that demolishes forever the myth of the brilliant, heroic conquistador of the human mind. Delving deeply into hitherto suppressed archival material, Crews paints an unforgettable portrait of an utterly incompetent psychotherapist whose ruthless pursuit of wealth and fame led him to disregard the welfare of his patients as well as the scruples of scientific method.

A stunning indictment of Sigmund Freud...Paints a portrait of Freud as a man who cared more about himself than his patients and more about success than science.

Crews opens his study with the question of how Freud, whose scientific reputation has plummeted over the past decades, could retain so much cultural capital in the twenty-first century. In a single volume, he draws a portrait of Freud the liar, cheat, incestuous child molester, and all-around nasty nut job, bringing a new level of detail to these accounts.

Crews [is] going in for the kill. A damning portrait.

Diligently documented...neither sensationalized nor ranting...A scorching summation.

For those who worship Freud and even those millions who have simply admired his ideas, Crews's rigorous and captivating detective work will be a bracing challenge.

Impressively well-researched, powerfully written, and definitively damning.

The Freudian myth-one of the thought-deforming tyrannies of the twentieth century-is hereby at an end. This book is as exhilarating as the fall of the Berlin wall.

Frederick Crews is the author of many books, including the bestselling satire The Pooh Perplex and, most recently, Follies of the Wise, which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. A professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a longtime contributor to the New York Review of Books.

William Hughes is an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. A professor of political science at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, he received his doctorate in American politics from the University of California at Davis. He has done voice-over work for radio and film and is also an accomplished jazz guitarist.