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In these two important volumes Kutter has tried to do for psychoanalysis what Wells (1921) did for history. Although the scope of Wells's subject matter was admittedly much greater, paradoxically his task was easier because a large part of history's evidence is in the public domain as compared with that of psychoanalysis. Thus Wells could write his history by himself, while Kutter had to resort to separate authors for each chapter. Consequently, while the value of the individual contributions depends on each author's training, experience and perspective, the overall significance of the total work is greater than the sum of its parts. Because history continues to unfold, it is as true for Wells's objectives as it is for Kutter's that their results represent a snapshot or cross-section of the subject seen in a perspective of history to that point.
In his preface to Volume 1, Etchegoyen states: ‘The main schools and directions in which the discipline created by Sigmund Freud has evolved are given an enlightening critical exposition’ (p. vii). This seemingly innocuous statement is of much greater import than perhaps even Etchegoyen himself recognized. Despite the multiple authoring, or perhaps because of it, this work constitutes the best available published English-language antidote to psychoanalytic parochialism and Balkanization of theory and practice. The vital core elements of psychoanalysis continue to survive challenges and confrontations around the world, with episodic catastrophic exceptions such as took place during the Nazi regime. There are other more in-depth studies of psychoanalytic thought and of particular psychoanalytic organizations (e.g. Jones, 1953, 1955; Hale, 1971; Gay, 1988; Kurzweil, 1989; Brecht et al., 1993; Wallerstein, 1998; Kirsner, 2000; and the work of the International Association for the History of Psychoanalysis, Paris). However, there is nothing else that successfully depicts the global discipline coupled with views of the ambient inte