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Almost immediately following Bruno Bettelheim's death in 1990, a number of articles appeared that vehemently attacked both the professional and personal aspects of his reputation, and two controversial biographies have also been published (Pollak, 1997; Sutton, 1996). It is refreshing that Marcus's study almost entirely refrains from becoming engaged with the recent polemical disputes about Bettelheim and instead focuses on certain aspects of his major intellectual contributions. In particular, Marcus presents the reader with a reexamination of Bettelheim's body of writings about immate behaviors in the Nazi concentration camps and, by extension, his theories about the effects of mass society on the individual's behaviors and sense of autonomy (Bettelheim, 1943, 1960, 1979, 1990). Futher, Marcus presents his understanding of what Bettelheim thought was necessary to reduce the oppressively conformist, normalizing impact of living in the mass society, or what personal qualities are most likely to help the average person retain his or her sense of autonomy, integration, and humanity. Despite his apparent attempts to avoid engagement in the current Bettelheim controversies, Marcus makes it clear that his aim is not to defend Bettelheim. Instead, he states that one of his overriding intentions is to provide a more or less “balanced” review of Bettelheim's concentration camp narrative.