Fantasy and Reality in History

In Fantasy and Reality, Peter Loewenberg brings what the discipline ofpsychoanalysis has learned about human conduct and the irrational to bear on theanalysis and writing of history. The result is a remarkable series of studies onindividual and social anxiety, racism and nationalism, and crisis management.First examining early twentieth century Zurich and the first practitioners ofpsychoanalysis--Freud, C.G. Jung, Karl Abraham, and others--to establish thediscipline's understanding of the unconscious and how it functions, Loewenbergthen explores the tensions in the lives and politics of modern politicalleaders. The great British Liberal Prime Minister Walther Rathenau, and theRussian facist demagogue Vladimir Zhirinovsky are among those studied.In each of these interconnected essays, Fantasy and Reality in History makesreadily evident the advantages, and unique insights, that psychoanalyticaltechniques can provide in the examination of history. Loewenberg's blend ofclinical and historico-political methods not only produces new excitingresearch, but demonstrates how it is done.