Civilization and Its Discontents

Civilization and Its Discontents is widely considered Freud’s most important and most brilliant work. In it Freud examines why today’s society causes suffering on such a vast scale and whether the human drives for pleasure and aggression can ever be reconciled.  This lively new translation with helpful explanatory notes captures Freud’s engaging tone for a twenty-first-century audience and includes essays by two of Freud’s most insightful and renowned interpreters, historian Carl E. Schorske and philosopher Richard Rorty.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis, a method for psychological therapy and a theory of human nature. His conception of the unconscious, of the relevance of dreams, and of the role played by our drives for pleasure and aggression as well as his trenchant critique of culture shape our self-understanding to this day.

Ulrich Baer is University Professor at New York University and has translated works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke, and other authors.

Carl E. Schorske (1915–2015) was an American historian whose influential writings, including Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, were honored with Pulitzer and MacArthur awards.

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) was an eminent American philosopher known for many seminal books, including Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Achieving Our Country, and Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.