Sigmund Freud is the chief developer of psychoanalysis, a therapeutic technique that uses conversation to help patients unearth, understand, and transcend repressed memories and traumas. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud presents a case for applying analytic theory to society at large in the hopes that it will benefit from a few sessions, so to speak, on the analytic couch. It is a daring idea, hinting that its author views himself as on a heroic quest.

Civilization and Its Discontents affords Freud a chance to lay bare his beliefs about humanity, human foibles, and how society can productively manage interactions between individuals. Throughout his argument, Freud reveals his sincerity, his thought process, and, more subtly, his personal opinions and biases. Overall, he makes his respect for logic, reason, and scientific inquiry clear, and he admits to the limitations of his own anecdotal methods.

Freud is world-famous in much the way that Einstein, Chaplin, and Churchill are famous: iconic, over-simplified, and partly misunderstood. Civilization and Its Discontents, if read thoughtfully, can deepen a reader’s understanding of Freud and, to an extent, banish some of the more extreme views many hold about him.