On Freud's “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,”: edited by Ethel Spector Person,  The Analytic Press, Hillsdale, New Jersey, 2001,  208 pp., $29.95.

Freud was not satisfied with this work and said so to Sandor Ferenczi and Romain Rolland. Freud explained the loss of individuality in mobs as due to aim inhibited libido and the Oedipus complex. Group members identified with the leader as a father figure, who replaced their ego ideal, and they identified with one another. This he felt was a phylogenetic inheritance from the primal horde. Group psychology has special relevance today since September 11, 2001. We are now confronted with a clash between two cultural groups. Islamic fundamentalists have tried to compare this to the 12th century Crusades, which was a war between two religions, Christianity and Islam. The conflict now is between our secular, scientific, democratic society that respects diversity and individual rights versus a theocratic, authoritarian society that demands conformity and individual self-sacrifice. As an aside, Saladin, the brave Muslim leader in the Crusades, had a Jewish physician, Moses Maimonides, and Jews as well as Muslims were the objects of Christian aggression then. In medieval times, it was Islamic individuals who made important contributions to civilization,