The Case of Sigmund Freud

Two books by Sander Gilman, The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Siècle and Freud, Race, and Gender, ¹ succeed in making an important contribution to the pre-existing literature about Freud. One might think that by now the possible lines of interpretation about Freud had started to dry up. Instead, Freud turns out to be such a considerable figure in intellectual history that he appears to be subject to a wide variety of viewpoints as each generation finds something special in his work. In the case of Sander L. Gilman, he has not invented a new Freud for the sake of novelty. On the contrary, from the extensiveness of his bibliographic references one gets the impression that he has read virtually everything relevant that has appeared in print; oddly enough he is stronger on the continental scholarship than the Anglo-American, but that is in its own way helpful for those of us without Gilman’s familiarity with European sources. It also seems that he has legitimately emphasized how significant it is that Freud be seen not only as a Jew, but as part of the history of Western attitudes toward Judaism.