Freud into the Twentieth Century

Freud's life and work have been more extensively documented than that of almost any other revolutionary thinker yet questions remain unanswered, mysteries still remain. This book, documents a forgotten corner of Jewish history, one that, at the same time, sheds new light on questions about Freud that have, so far, escaped historians.In this book, the author intends to show that the part played by some Jews in the lead-up to the Anschluss in 1938 had a profound effect on Freud that, not mentioned in his writings, has been neither taken into account in the psychoanalytic literature nor associated by critics with his writings. It was this effect, I will show, that prompted Freud to write his most enigmatic and controversial work. 'Moses and Monotheism'.The author suggests a solution to the mystery of Rebecca whose name, invoked by Freud at the very birth of psychoanalysis, continues to puzzle historians.Estelle Roith consider the possibility that Freud's change of direction on his seduction theory was triggered by the peculiar impact made on him by Signorelli's frescoes of the Last Judgement in Orvieto Cathedral.