Totem and Taboo

Widely acknowledged to be one of Freud's greatest cultural works, when Totem and Taboo was first published in 1913, it caused outrage. Thorough and thought-provoking, Totem and Taboo remains the fullest exploration of Freud's most famous themes. Family, society, religion - they're all put on the couch here. Whatever your feelings about psychoanalysis, Freud's theories have influenced every facet of modern life, from film and literature to medicine and art. If you don't know your incest taboo from your Oedipal complex, and you want to understand more about the culture we're living in, then Totem and Taboo is the book to read.

'With - Totem and Tabo Freud invented evolutionary psychology.''Freud has told us that for him all natural science, medicine, and psychotherapy were a lifelong journey round and back to the early passion of his youth for the history of mankind, for the origins of religion and morality - an interest which at the height of his career broke out to such magnificent effect in - Totem and Taboo.' - Thomas Mann'Relations between social anthropology and psychology are still ill-defined and unstable. But in any resolution of them the work of psychoanalysts must be taken very seriously into account. It is very useful, then, to have this new translation of the pioneer work.' - Nature'Freud had a strong element of the artist in his composition. Nearly all his work was well translated into English, with one glaring exception: - Totem and Taboo. Now, at last . . . justice has been done . . . The book itself is one of the most fascinating and characteristic, and also of the most speculative, in the whole Freudian canon.'

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). The founding father of psychoanalysis, Freud is one of the most influential thinkers of the modern era.