These authors have made an interesting contribution. They elucidate certain aspects of German culture. 'This study', they state, 'advances the hypothesis that a distinctive type of character structure in the Nazi variant of German culture approximates or falls under the "compulsive character" of psychoanalytic theory'.

Aware of the difficulty of their task, which they have carried out with extraordinary sagacity, the authors do not consider their hypothesis fully confirmed but useful for further studies. The hypothesis is pursued into all branches of German ideology and contains a wealth of observations which cannot be presented in a short review. The twenty chapters have such headings, for example, as Revolt and Submission, Destructiveness and Correctness, Order and Disorder, Doubt and Dogmatism, Self-Esteem and Self-Contempt, in which various traits, typical of the compulsive character, are discussed in their polarity. The authors are particularly successful