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Another book by Roazen is now an event to be celebrated in psychoanalysis. I believe it is impossible for a psychoanalyst to read a book by Roazen without acquiring new facts in the history of the field. He displays an astonishing array of information not generally known, and always surprising. For example, after having spent four years in study under Paul Schilder, I had no idea that Freud considered him unsuitable to teach psychoanalysis (p. 196). Roazen's style is lively, piquant, and trenchant; I consider it best described as imperturbable; where other writers might find cautionary attitudes arising within them that urge them to hesitate, Roazen moves on with an élan characteristic of the French generals of World War I. Moreover, he has the complete vocabulary of the widely read scholar.
Roazen displays another prominent feature of his personality. He is an expert polemicist, and before one crosses swords with this skillful duelist, one should know the risks. The way he demolishes the views of Eissler and Gedo in this volume are examples of this skill.
The subtitle of the book adequately summarizes its content: The Politics and Histories of Psychoanalysis. These fields are covered with a wide-ranging grasp that makes the book very informative to the reader. The writings on politics, biography, and history are especially enlightening and valuable to the psychoanalyst.
Having pointed out above that Roazen is expert at debating and can easily defeat an opponent, I shall now rush in where angels fear to tread. Roazen shows a difficulty that he shares with a good many others, notably psychologists. When nonmedical people discuss medical affairs, they are likely to be uneasy enough to attack the medical profession and become pejorative in their remarks. My reply to some of Roazen's ideas is based on his own views that psychoanalysis has suffered from “an inadequate level of accepted everyday differences of opinion” (p. 168).
Roazen says (p. 51) “I have long been distresse