Freud for Historians - Hardcover

Gay, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195035860 ISBN 13: 9780195035865

Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, 1985

Synopsis

Is psychoanalysis a legitimate tool for helping us understand the past? Many traditional historians have answered with an emphatic no, greeting the introduction of Freud into historical study with reponses ranging from condescending skepticism to outrage. Now Peter Gay, one of America's leading historians, builds and eloquent case for "history informed by psychoanalysis" and offers an impressive rebuttal to the charges of the profession's anti-Freudians. Iin this book, Gay takes on the opposition's arguments, defending psychoanalysis as a discipline that can enhance social, economic, and literary studies. No mere polemic, Freud for Historians is a thoughtful and detailed contribution to a major intellectual debate. "Gay is one of those rare academics whose competence in psychoanalysis is hardly less than his expertise in historical research."--The New York Times "An impassioned, compelling argument for the utility of the psychoanalytic perspective to inform historical studies."--Library Journal "Incisive, persuasive, a delight to read...[It] should spark wide controversy for a long time to come."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

About this title

Review:

"Incisive, persuasive, a delight to read....[It] should spark wide controversy for a long time to come."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Gay is one of those rare academics whose competence in psychoanalysis is hardly less than his expertise in historical research."--The New York Times Book Review

"An impassioned, compelling argument for the utility of the psychoanalytic perspective to inform historical studies."--Library Journal

"[An] elegant and incisive defence of psychoanalysis."--The Guardian (London)

"Delightful....Gay deals constructively and candidly with genuine difficulties historians have found with Freud....We should all be grateful for this graceful, wise, and witty essay that makes us more sensitive to the complexities of the human experience and urges historians to join forces with psychoanalysts in an amicable search for the truth about the past."--American Historical Review

Synopsis:

A thorough investigation of both the valid and invalid reasons for using psychoanalysis as a system of thought to decipher historical events argues for the value of psychanalysis as one method of historical inquiry.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0195035860
• ISBN 13: 9780195035865
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272