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This dense and scholarly work of analysis and synthesis regarding the connection between the thought of that most important nineteenth-century philosopher cum psychologist, Hegel, and that most philosophical of psychologists of the twentieth century, Jung, is a very welcome addition to the body of study that seeks to understand the cultural background in which Jung's opus developed. In doing this, Kelly weaves an intelligible web across those disparate, intricate and recursive strands of investigation that can at times intrigue and stimulate, at times frustrate and infuriate, dedicated readers of Jung (how many ways has he given us of thinking about the concept of the archetype, for example?). Through his scholarship and no doubt because of his understanding and application of Hegel's dialectical model that provide a context in which to integrate Jung's work, Kelly presents a seamless exposition of the relationship between Hegel (‘that psychologist in philosopher's garb', as Jung called him) and Jung himself, whose philosophical and spiritual predispositions informed so much of his psychological investigations.
Kelly discusses the puzzling disclaimers by Jung that he was in any way influenced by Hegel (indeed, Jung speaks most deprecatingly of Hegel in the sparse references to him in the Collected Works), despite one statement in which Jung grudgingly admits to ‘a remarkable coincidence between certain tenets of Hegelian philosophy and my findings concerning the collective unconscious’. (Jung much preferred to place himself in the tradition of Plato, Kant and Schopenhauer.) Kelly offers as an explanation of