Reviews
[E]xcellent. . . . The book is strongly recommended to anyone who is interested in the history of psychoanalysis, but also to people who want to know more about this important chapter in the intellectual history of the twentieth century., "All too often the history of psychoanalysis has been written from polemical standpoints, leaving us to lurch between uncritical hagiography and categorical repudiation. After Freud Left avoids these pitfalls, locating the rise and fall of psychoanalysis in the United States within broader social, political, cultural, and international developments. The result is a lively and intriguing set of essays, which offer refreshingly new, often surprising, insights into the history of this important intellectual movement."-Greg Eghigian, Pennsylvania State University, The book, which includes essays by historians of medicine and of culture, among them Elizabeth Lunbeck, George Makari, Louis Menand, and Dorothy Ross, tells a tale of how psychoanalysis resonated with some of the major thinkers of the time--including Lionel Trilling, Herbert Marcuse, and Norman O. Brown to name but a few. . . . In assembling an illustrious group of historians to write about this topic, Dr. Burnham has done a terrific service to a profession that might well want to reflect on its origins., With a superbly nuanced and reflective introduction by this collection's editor, John Burnham-the doyen of the history of American psychoanalysis-the papers explore, with remarkable erudition and display of previously unexplored sources, the arrival of psychoanalysis in the United States, symbolized by Freud's one brief visit, to Clark University, in 1909, and the long arc of its rise and decline across the hundred years from 19092009. Emigration, transformation, distortion all played their part in the production of American psychoanalysis, which was infused to a remarkable extent in midcentury American life and now appears to be evaporating as quickly as it arrived. Does it leave traces? The historians and critics whose fine papers are collected in After Freud Left give nuanced and original answers., All too often the history of psychoanalysis has been written from polemical standpoints, leaving us to lurch between uncritical hagiography and categorical repudiation. After Freud Left avoids these pitfalls, locating the rise and fall of psychoanalysis in the United States within broader social, political, cultural, and international developments. The result is a lively and intriguing set of essays, which offer refreshingly new, often surprising, insights into the history of this important intellectual movement., "All too often the history of psychoanalysis has been written from polemical standpoints, leaving us to lurch between uncritical hagiography and categorical repudiation. After Freud Left avoids these pitfalls, locating the rise and fall of psychoanalysis in the United States within broader social, political, cultural, and international developments. The result is a lively and intriguing set of essays, which offer refreshingly new, often surprising, insights into the history of this important intellectual movement.", "With a superbly nuanced and reflective introduction by this collection's editor, John Burnham-the doyen of the history of American psychoanalysis-the papers explore, with remarkable erudition and display of previously unexplored sources, the arrival of psychoanalysis in the United States, symbolized by Freud's one brief visit, to Clark University, in 1909, and the long arc of its rise and decline across the hundred years from 19092009. Emigration, transformation, distortion all played their part in the production of American psychoanalysis, which was infused to a remarkable extent in midcentury American life and now appears to be evaporating as quickly as it arrived. Does it leave traces? The historians and critics whose fine papers are collected in After Freud Left give nuanced and original answers."-John Forrester, University of Cambridge, After Freud Left makes a much needed intervention into the historical record, revealing the eclectic and incongruous ways in which Freud's ideas migrated stateside., In this outstanding collection of essays, Burnham offers a rich, compelling illumination of how psychoanalysis, as the discipline that Freud founded and many refugees carried to America, fared given the changing cultural and historical landscape in the US since 1909, the year Freud delivered his famous Clark University lectures. . . . This volume will be of great value to historians of American culture, psychoanalysis, and intellectual history. Highly recommended., [T]his book contains many fascinating historical facts that help broaden the understanding of the development and decline of psychoanalysis in America., With a superbly nuanced and reflective introduction by this collection's editor, John Burnham--the doyen of the history of American psychoanalysis--the papers explore, with remarkable erudition and display of previously unexplored sources, the arrival of psychoanalysis in the United States, symbolized by Freud's one brief visit, to Clark University, in 1909, and the long arc of its rise and decline across the hundred years from 1909-2009. Emigration, transformation, distortion all played their part in the production of American psychoanalysis, which was infused to a remarkable extent in midcentury American life and now appears to be evaporating as quickly as it arrived. Does it leave traces? The historians and critics whose fine papers are collected in After Freud Left give nuanced and original answers., The book, which includes essays by historians of medicine and of culture, among them Elizabeth Lunbeck, George Makari, Louis Menand, and Dorothy Ross, tells a tale of how psychoanalysis resonated with some of the major thinkers of the time-including Lionel Trilling, Herbert Marcuse, and Norman O. Brown to name but a few. . . . In assembling an illustrious group of historians to write about this topic, Dr. Burnham has done a terrific service to a profession that might well want to reflect on its origins.
