The Case of Sigmund Freud

Mr. Gilman's work is the most convincing account of how Freud's anxiety about being Jewish is reflected in his work. After reading Mr. Gilman's exhaustive treatment, one cannot help seeing Freud as struggling to formulate a response to the Viennese notions of Jewishness in which he was inescapably steeped.

Gilman [is] one of the most original and stimulating cultural historians of his generation... Reminds us that the best cultural history does not bring us comfortingly nearer to the past, but brings its distance from us to life.

Gilman is unrelenting in documenting how the biological literature of the 19th century was racist to its core. A stimulating and provocative book.

Historians, no matter what their field, ignore Sander Gilman's work at their peril.