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Hanns Sachs fortunately completed the manuscript of this book before his death. Its posthumous publication we owe to his editor, Mr. A. A. Roback.
Both Anna Freud, who wrote the foreword, and Mr. Roback, who wrote a penetrating introduction, discuss Sachs's personality, his analytic career, his exceptional position and rôle in what was called 'the psychoanalytic movement', i.e., in the history of psychoanalysis. Once again it is pointed out by Anna Freud that psychoanalysis has always had two aspects: one, the medical, in as much as it is a therapy and psychopathology; the other, in so far as analysis is part of general psychology, relates to the social sciences and anthropology. Sachs, from the beginning, was outstanding among those who were interested in the latter aspects of psychoanalysis—in the knowledge of man and the understanding of his behavior. If Sachs was an exceptional figure among analysts, this book is exceptional among psychoanalytic books. Analysts should be thankful to Mr. Roback for having edited and helped publish it. I believe that many of them will be deeply grateful to Sachs for having written it.
This book is exceptional because it is neither a treatise on any specific subject, nor in any way a popularization of analysis. It is a series of themes bound together by Sachs's profound interest in and understanding of human beings.
Mr. Roback gave this book the title under which it appears. Sachs intended to call it The People of a Strange Planet, which sheds light on the spirit in which the book was written—that of the surprised detachment of one who wants to emphasize the contradictions, discrepancies and inexplicable strangeness of human behavior. This attitude, far from being cynical, reveals a quality