American Handbook of Psychiatry. Two Volumes: Edited by Silvano Arieti, M.D. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1959. 2098 pp.

Here at last is a compilation in the tradition of the German Handbücher: a comprehensive presentation of the best in modern psychiatric thought by acknowledged authorities in their respective fields. Dr. Arieti is assisted by a distinguished editorial board: Kenneth E. Appel, Daniel Blain, Norman Cameron, Kurt Goldstein, and Lawrence C. Kolb, but the credit of editorship properly goes to Dr. Arieti.

To summarize the one hundred chapters is impossible; one can only enumerate some of the features. The comprehensiveness of the work is illustrated by the titles of the fifteen parts: General (historical, behavior, genetics, examination); Psychoneuroses and Allied Conditions; Functional Psychoses: Psychopathic Conditions, Deviations, Addictions; Psychosomatic Medicine; Childhood and Adolescence; Language, Speech, Communication; Organic Considerations; The Psychotherapies (chapters by Muncie, Goldstein, Rollo May, Jerome Frank and Florence Powdermaker, and Moreno); Psychoanalytic Therapies (Greenson, Kelman, Wolberg, Ruth Munroe, inter alia); The Physical Therapies (Horwitz, Kalinowski, Freeman, Hoch, and McGraw); Relations with Basic Sciences and Experimental Psychiatry; Contributions from Related Fields (psychology, cybernetics, philosophy, religion); Management and Care of the Patient; Legal, Administrative, Didactical, and Preventive Psychiatry (forensic, teaching, mental hygiene).

Every effort has been made to present varying and also conflicting points of view. In all, one hundred eleven authors participated—a sufficient guarantee of differences! Dr. Arieti says in the Preface: '… the book is offered as representative of American Psychiatry today … Although most of the great psychiatric contributions originated in Europe, in no country other than the United States is there such willingness to listen to, to try out, and evaluate all theories, methodologies, and techniques, and to absorb and find a place for all or many of them.' The work is a tribute not on