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Erich Fromm was an opera. Colorful, bold, powerful, complex, filled with battles and causes on a worldwide stage—revolution, Holocaust, threats of nuclear annihilation, a mission to save humankind—an opera colored by ardor and love, hope and loss. It is thus understandable that even a fairly thorough biography will, of necessity, fall short in capturing the dramatic restlessness of Fromm's blazing spirit, powerful influence, and extraordinarily vibrant integration with his times. Lawrence
J. Friedman's The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love's Prophet is that fairly thorough biography. And Friedman does a decent job of bringing Fromm back to public light almost 35 years after his death and a half century after his greatest popularity. This biography can serve those who have little idea of Fromm's range of interests and activities. The book provides an historical context for the genius that was Fromm. Friedman, an experienced biographer of leading figures in psychoanalysis (Erik Erikson, the Menninger family), has brought his expertise to Fromm's complex life, tracing Fromm's richly varied, yet deeply integrated interests, passions, and relationships with professional doggedness and thoroughness.
For myself, reading Friedman on Fromm brought back to focal awareness the powerful impact that Fromm had on me and many of my teachers and contemporaries. I had become unaware, over the years, of the ways that many of my professional dreams, ambitions, and activities were modeled after Fromm's spirit and remarkably cogent contributions.
For us at the William Alanson White Institute, and for generations of students, he was a giant, an inspiration, a leader. Our Moses. He was an outstanding teacher, wonderful writer, founder with his somewhat opposite (Harry Stack Sullivan) of the White Institute. Whereas Sullivan opened our eyes to the intricate network of human interaction, Fromm played on the grand stage of culture and personality, while Clara Thompson held it all together with a d