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Leo Rangell is without equal as scholar, teacher, and extoller of psychoanalysis. But it is also as a moralist that he deserves our attention and respect. Whether he is illustrating how some have strayed too far from the Freudian fold, or of our “compromises of integrity” as a nation he badgers us to be better, to think precisely, to remember our roots, and not slip into moral failure. He is, as Rodman (1989) succincdy notes, “similar to that of an Old Testament prophet who is protecting the achievement of man's internal unity via a conception of a single God, as opposed to an unlimited range of gods” (p. 22). This, however, may be Rangell's single failing; his difficulty in accepting what may be good in the new. He argues that much of what is new in psychoanalysis has so totally discarded basic assumptions that we must be protected from those who dismiss those basic assumptions that are the very “core” of psychoanalysis. Rangell has been steadfast in his defense of this core and to the basic tenets of Freudian psychoanalysis. For almost 50 years he has stood fast to his principles, always expanding from within.
The Human Core is a testament to Rangell's faith and to his principles. This two volume opus collects 35 papers that, in page after page, illustrate that faith. The first chapter, “The Evolution