civilization and its discontents penguin

He was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. His many works include 'The Ego and the Id', 'An Outline of Psycho-Analysis', Civilization and Its Discontent, and others.

About the Author: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is one of the twentieth century's greatest minds and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology.

Man, by nature aggressive and egotistical, seeks self-satisfaction. Freud's theme is that what works for civilization doesn't necessarily work for man. This process, argues Freud, is an inherent quality of civilization that instills perpetual feelings of discontent in its citizens. As a result, civilization creates laws that prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and it implements severe punishments if such commandments are broken. Many of humankind's primitive instincts (for example, the desire to kill and the insatiable craving for sexual gratification) are clearly harmful to the well-being of a human community. 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. In it he states his views on the broad question of man's place in the world. It is considered his most brilliant work. 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.Civilization and Its Discontents' is one of the last of Freud's books, written in the decade before his death and first published in German in 1929.

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. 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. It has been praised, dissected, lambasted, interpreted, and reinterpreted. Written in the decade before Freud's death, Civilization and Its Discontents may be his most famous and most brilliant work. Freud's seminal volume of twentieth-century cultural thought grounded in psychoanalytic theory, now with a new introduction by Christopher Hitchens.

Civilization and its discontents penguin