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Suzanne Gieser presents us with an exceptional work of scholarship, which should become a standard source of reference for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of Jung's theories and their relationship to 20th century science. She has accomplished this feat, however, not by way of primary reference to Jung, but rather by way of a detailed and penetrating study of Wolfgang Pauli and his engagement with Jung and Jung's ideas. It is worth noting at the beginning that this approach, which is novel from the point of view of most Jungians, is vindicated in no small degree by Jung's own response to Pauli. Their correspondence, which provides the foundation for much of our understanding of their relationship (Meier 2001), is unique in the Jung corpus; it may be the only instance where Jung is genuinely attentive to, indeed deferential to, a correspondent over an extended period of time while dealing with the most complex and vexing of his ideas. Pauli, it seems, was one of few, if not again the only, interlocutor of Jung's who could actively and in detail challenge Jung's most precious ideas. As Gieser makes clear throughout her book, Pauli's critical, yet constructive and genuinely positive view of Jung and his ideas, was not limited to their correspondence, but extended to correspondence with Marie-Louise von Franz, C. A. Meier, and Aniela Jaffé, as well as several of his associates in the world of quantum physics. Gieser, however, goes well beyond the correspondence and develops a rich and wide-ranging overview of the intellectual world of Pauli, and of his relationships with his greatest mentor, Niels Bohr—as well as other notable physicists of the period such as Einstein, Heisenberg, and his own assistant, Markus Fierz.
Gieser's book, however, is not simply a review of the relationship between these two monumental figures. Nor is it simply a well worked through history of science. Rather, the essential framework of her study derives its form and significance at l