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Another biography of Freud? And a translation no less? Why? Could we expect any surprising reveals that might be relevant to his work, to his historical status, or even to the historical Freud known to us? In fact, Roudinesco takes a middle-of-the-road approach, on the one hand debunking the more sensationalistic “revelations” that “Freud bashing” (Roudinesco, 2016, p. 423) revels in,† and on the other hand making a point of covering the more problematic cases (such as the Frink case), some of the odder aspects of his thought (e.g., his belief in theories doubting Shakespeare's authorship) that the more hagiographic biographies pass over in silence (Jones's opus is the prototype for that end of the spectrum).
One of the key aims of her sober, even-handed approach is to counterbalance the excesses of Freud bashing. “The theses of the ‘Freud bashers' … helped interject into public opinion a blurred image of Freud's life and work, an image sometimes based on the wildest rumors, which were presented in print as established truths. Hence my decision to undertake this biographical and historical work” (Roudinesco, 2016, p. 426).
Most important, however, we should note in the quote above that Roudinesco characterizes her work as “biographical and historical.” It is precisely the emphasis on “historical” that makes it a major contribution, that is, by placing Freud the person, Freud the body of thought, and Freud the cultural phenomenon within his sociopolitical and historical context. Although this approach to Freud stands apart from the loyalist perspectives of his followers who espouse radical creation myths of the body of thought linked to “isolated hero” versions of the person, it now fits within a tradition of historiography (Roudinesco, 2016, p. 2) that Roudinesco situates herself in. This includes works such as Gay's (1988) and Ellenberger's (1970), who she credits to be the “first … to introduce lon