Prochnik, George. "Review of REVOLUTION IN MIND: THE CREATION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS by George Makari," NEW YORK TIMES January 20, 2008.

In Revolution in Mind, Makari argues that we’ve been blinded to the cultural reach of psychoanalysis by the magnitude of Freud’s stature and the magnetic pull or repulsion of his personality and theories. In Makari’s view, much contemporary discussion about the relevance of psychoanalysis is based on a false choice: “Freud as everlasting genius, or Freud as relic and fraud.” To Makari, the director of Cornell University’s Institute for the History of Psychiatry, this dichotomy is artificial. Instead, he argues, we should look to the rich, polyphonous context that gave birth to and was influenced by the analytic enterprise: “the culture of Kant; the assumptions of Geisteswissenschaft and a European classical education,” along with “evolutionary biology, positivism and Newtonian physics.” . . . Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Prochnik-t.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.