A Freudian Century
Martin Wain is author of Freud's Answers: The Origins of Our Psychoanalytical Century.
There were two revolutions that rocked the 19th century and disrupted the stable order of centuries of predictable social order. The late 18th century French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution of the 1830's caused enormous upheaval and displacement. An order was overturned and in its wake chaos flowed. Societies in Europe were marked by the new mass disease of hysteria.
Into this maelstrom entered the new science of psychoanalysis and the striking personal contribution of Sigmund Freud. Freudian theory would address the place of the individual in a newly reconstituted social order. Martin Wain explains how.