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This is the first scientific biography of the renowned psychiatrist Silvano Arieti who, after immigrating from Italy to the United States in 1939, gained recognition, particularly for his work on schizophrenia. His book Interpretation of Schizophrenia won the 1975 National Book Award in Science. Arieti was professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College, a training analyst in the Division of Psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute, and editor of the six-volume American Handbook of Psychiatry.
Reading like a skillful historical novel or a very detailed historiographical work, this biography is paced by Roberta Passione’s incisive and captivating style, fascinating the reader as she traces the events of Silvano Arieti’s life. A master unfortunately forgotten by many, this book makes clear that Arieti’s life was passionate and exciting, filled with intellectual, professional, scientific, and cultural experiences.
Passione has done well in drafting a streamlined and dynamic text, eschewing a heavy-handed academic style, while stressing that every element she presents is based on the careful consultation of published and unpublished sources. The text’s documentary basis is rooted in research the author conducted at the Silvano Arieti Papers, which are kept in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Arieti’s life spanned from 1914 (the year of his birth in Pisa) to his untimely death in New York City on August 7, 1981. After studying medicine, Arieti left Italy in 1939 at the age of twenty-four because of racial laws and, although he could not speak English, he went to the United States, bringing with him a lifelong intellectual vivacity and cognitive curiosity. In New York, he came up against the difficulties of a life as an immigrant but also encountered environments and people of great
depth, including Armando Ferraro, who he contacted on the advice of his professor Giuseppe Ayala. At that point, he began a residency at Pilgrim State Hospital, an