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Civilization and Its Discontents - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Civilization and Its Discontents

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Freud’s seminal volume of twentieth-century cultural thought grounded in psychoanalytic theory, now with a new introduction by Christopher Hitchens.

Written in the decade before Freud’s death, Civilization and Its Discontents may be his most famous and most brilliant work. It has been praised, dissected, lambasted, interpreted, and reinterpreted. Originally published in 1930, it seeks to answer several questions fundamental to human society and its organization: What influences led to the creation of civilization? Why and how did it come to be? What determines civilization’s trajectory? Freud’s theories on the effect of the knowledge of death on human existence and the birth of art are central to his work. Of the various English translations of Freud’s major works to appear in his lifetime, only Norton’s Standard Edition, under the general editorship of James Strachey, was authorized by Freud himself. This new edition includes both an introduction by the renowned cultural critic and writer Christopher Hitchens as well as Peter Gay’s classic biographical note on Freud.

ISBN-13: 9780393304510

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Norton - W. W. & Company - Inc.

Publication Date: 08-09-2010

Pages: 192

Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.50(d)

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is one of the twentieth century's greatest minds and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. His many works include The Ego and the Id; An Outline of Psycho-Analysis; Inhibitions; Symptoms and Anxiety; New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis; Civilization and Its Discontent, and others. Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) is the author of God Is Not Great, Hitch-22, and Why Orwell Matters. Peter Gay (1923—2015) was the author of more than twenty-five books, including the National Book Award winner The Enlightenment, the best-selling Weimar Culture, and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Sigmund Freud: A Brief Chronology
Translator’s Note

Civilization and its Discontents (1930)

Appendix A: Other Works of Freud

  1. From “‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Disease” (March 1908)
  2. From “Thought for the Times on War and Death” (1915)
  3. From Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
  4. From The Future of an Illusion (1927)
  5. From Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Why War? (1932)
  6. From Moses and Monotheism (1939)

Appendix B: Contemporary Reviews of Civilization and Its Discontents

  1. E. G. Catlin, “Freud No Freudian” Saturday Review (27 September 1930)
  2. Joseph Jastrow, “Unhappiness Psycho-Analyzed” Saturday Review of Literature (6 December 1930)
  3. Harold D. Lasswell, “Review: Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud,” American Journal of Sociology (September 1931)

Appendix C: Scholarly Responses to Civilization and Its Discontents

  1. Herbert Marcuse, “The Dialectic of Civilization” (1955)
  2. Philip Rieff, “Freud & the Value of Religion” (1959)
  3. Paul Ricoeur, “On Metaculture & ‘Death Against Death’” (1970)

Select Bibliography

Index