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This book of 443 pages consists of seven parts, an appendix, an excellent bibliography, and an index. In the preface, the authors make grateful acknowledgement to such well-known investigators as Bernard Glueck, Mortimer W. Raynor, C. P. Oberndorf, and others, thus admitting their appreciation of the importance of the problem.
A chance perusal of the bibliography and index before reading the volume, impressed the present reviewer with the magnitude of this work, a feeling, which was not, however, substantiated by the reading of the book. To be sure, the authors touch upon all the normal and abnormal aspects that bear any relation to suicide, but one soon senses the sketchy nature of their efforts. The authors seem to reason that inasmuch as suicide is a mental problem, the reader should know all about normal and pathological psychic processes, and with a superficial circumstantiality, they forthwith proceed to give this information. A page or two, or a few paragraphs, are deemed sufficient to explain important psychiatric problems or complex psycho-analytical theories. This is the weak part of a very earnest effort, more or less successfully accomplished, considering the complexity of the subject and the psychiatric inexpertness of the authors.
Nevertheless, this book is well worth reading. It is the first work on suicide to give a rather comprehensive résumé of the literature on the subject. Great pains are taken to present the various theories of suicide, as expressed in religion, philosophy, and psychiatry; the statistical data about suicide in the United States and Europe is interestingly and scientifically tabulated, and last, but not least, the authors lay particular stress on the contribution of psycho-analysis to the problem of suicide. Frequent mention is made of the views of Freud, Abraham, Jones and others. In brief, this reviewer feels that we have an excellent contribution to a complex psychopathological phenomenon, well worth reading.