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For those in the psychoanalytic community who may have accepted the idea of some revisionists that the early reviews of Freud's works were positive rather than negative or non-understanding or neglectful, this volume serves a useful purpose. It places those ideas
in a more objective light by providing a verbatim account of the reviews of Freud's early work. The reader comes to appreciate that blind trust in secondary sources is the graveyard of any serious historical enterprise. It is upon reliance on secondary sources and inferior translations that much revisionist thinking rests.
Freud without Hindsight shows that the early Freud was the recipient of numerous inept reviews, was generally neglected by the medical authorities of his time, and was misunderstood by lay reviewers. Late reviews show Freud to be the victim of yet another generation of reviewers. Thus, the revisionist notion that holds that Freud complained too loudly about neglect withers when we are faced with the reviews in this volume. Freud, it seems, had some reasonable complaints, and this superb collection of the original reviews of his works may set some of the record straight.
Norman Kiell, Professor Emeritus, Psychological Services, Brooklyn College, has produced an extraordinary work of scholarship and bibliographic research. Anyone seriously interested in the history of psychoanalysis is in his debt. Not only are 172 reviews of 39 works of Freud reproduced in whole or in part in this volume, expertly translated into English, but a rich reference list and appendix are provided. The appendix, arranged according to both title and reviewer, lists a total of 800 reviews that extend from Freud's early short writings to Moses and Monotheism. Culled from journals and newspapers in libraries throughout Western Europe and the United States, the list comes fairly close to exhausting all the book reviews of the time. Many of the citations in the appendix, however, are to recent reviews of newe