A History of Psychoanalysis Ruben Fine. New York:  Columbia University Press, 1979,  iii + 686 pp.

Reuben Fine's A History of Psychoanalysis is a work of optimism in the sense that Freud's work is optimistic. Dr. Fine is a true lover of psychoanalysis and believes it has the power to change destiny. The book's dedication “To my grandchildren in the hope that they will find a better-analyzed world” is an example of how central psychoanalysis is to his thinking.

Indeed the centrality of psychoanalysis is the major thesis of the book. Fine believes that psychoanalysis can integrate all that is known about mankind into one unified science; that there is only one science, however the material is obtained. And all information must be integrated in accordance with the dynamic principles of psychoanalysis.

Fine attempts to integrate a massive amount of seemingly disparate subjects into that unified science. The book is a tour de force which reaches far beyond Fine's impressive overall view of psychoanalysis into fields as divergent as history, anthropology, philosophy, biology, medicine, physiology, education, sociopolitics, ethics, psychiatry, and academic psychology, as Fine explores how each field is influenced by and develops according to the tenets of psychoanalysis. Fine carefully develops the evolution of psychoanalytic theory from Freud on, and evaluates and coordinates the works of Freud and his early followers with all the work done in the field since his death. The works of Anna Freud, Heinz Hartmann, Erik Erikson, Harry Stack Sullivan, Abram Kardiner, the psychology of the self, and the ego psychologists are discussed in the light of their contributions to the mainstream. In much of his book, Fine reviews the history of psychoanalytic ideas, including psychosexual stages, instinct theory, the unconscious, ego psychology, neuroses, psychoses, object relations, the superego, the shift to interpersonal theory, the psychoanalytic approach to culture, and the maturation of technique. The book ends with a vision of all that mankind might become in accordance with Fin