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The history of how the intellectuals from neighbouring disciplines have reacted to and assimilated psychoanalysis in various cultures will make a fascinating narrative one day. In England, unlike America, the response has been devious and resistant. Mr Geoffrey Gorer is one of the very few in England who has maintained a positive and critical interest in psychoanalysis for nearly four decades, and this interest is reflected in all his anthropological research and writings. In the present volume, which is a selection by the author of his published papers and lectures over the past 15 years, analysts should find much on diverse topics that will stimulate vital thinking in them. What is most wholesome about Mr Gorer's vast erudition and enormous range of interest is his lack of any stance of expertise. And yet his keen and vivid style never lets the argument become diffused into the cosy familiarity of popular writing. It is difficult to select any particular essay for comment, but one could recommend the chapters: 'Pride, Shame and Guilt', 'The Marquis de Sade: Sado-Masochism and Theatricality' and 'The Uses of Pornography' as of special interest to the analytic reader. In Mr Gorer's application of psychoanalytic theories towards an understanding of persons and cultural processes, one encounters one of the most sensitive and balanced as well as creative usages of Freud's ideas that one has seen from any research worker. And Mr Gorer compels analysts to question many of their established theories, especially those relating to guilt and the whole problem of sadism.