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In Freud and his Critics, Paul Robinson, a Professor of History at Stanford University, takes on three of Freud's smartest, most effective, and well-known critics: Frank Sulloway, Jeffrey Masson, and Adolf Grünbaum. He also successfully takes them apart, in my view. Robinson accomplishes this not-so-simple task with comprehensiveness, clarity, and brilliance. Anyone who values Freud and his contributions will find the book an immensely satisfying (and possibly self-affirming) read.
This book is no tract; it is impressively fact-filled, and all students of Freud—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—will learn and profit from it. In separate chapters, Robinson goes directly to the home ground of each critic, taking on the arguments of each—detail by detail, point by point. With Sulloway and Grünbaum in particular, his meticulous description of their positions will afford many readers a greater clarity than can be derived from reading the critic's original text. The evidence Robinson marshals from Freud's work in support of his own positions is extraordinarily persuasive—overwhelming in its precision and attention to detail. In addition, his considerable scholarliness, erudition, and wit are combined in a deceptively simple and readable prose style.
Robinson is also far more than a purveyor of 'facts', of so-called hard data—that sort of potential for reductionism is shown to be a characteristic of each of these critics. One might say that in this respect Robinson is quintessentially psychoanalytic, Freudian. He actually humanises these adversaries, infers where each may be coming from. He is not tendentious, but rather is patient, compassionate. After all, one must first appreciate a man—even a critic!—before it is possible truly to understand him. Each of these critics is found to have selected the Freudian facts needed to serve his own purposes, which are multiple and complexly interrelated in every instance. Their motives may be ideological, political,