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Valerie Greenberg's book is one to be studied, not to be read casually. I was struck by the parallel between Greenberg's comments about Strachey—he “thought the aphasia text difficult to read” (p. 127)—and my perception of Greenberg's volume—I appreciated its significance, but found it a difficult read. However, Greenberg's volume is invaluable as an aid to reading and understanding Freud's On Aphasia (1891). Reading these two works together adds a fresh perspective on the development of psychoanalysis and the interrelationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Furthermore, it helps analysts understand some of Freud's most important theoretical insights, as he discussed them in The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud 1900), “Repression” (Freud 1915a), “The Unconscious” (Freud 1915b), “A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams” (Freud 1917), and The Ego and the Id (Freud 1923).
In its most basic framework, one goal of Freud's aphasia monograph was to refute two basic hypotheses prevalent in nineteenth-century aphasiology. The first made a distinction between the aphasia secondary to the destruction of nerve centers (central aphasia) and the aphasia secondary to the destruction of neural pathways (conduction aphasia). The second hypothesis he wanted to refute was the assumption that the functions of the central nervous system are restricted to anatomically definable areas (the localization theory) (p. 3).
A major strength of this volume (and what makes it very difficult to read) is Greenberg's comprehensive approach to Freud's text. She includes a discussion of many of the sources cited by Freud, and elaborates the work of these important nineteenth-century scientists. No review can do justice to her wealth of knowledge or her command of the neurological, psychoanalytic, and linguistic literature. She approaches the subject in a complex manner that stimulates the reader to study her text, Freud's original text, the neurological literature that Freud addr