Death of Sigmund Freud

A dramatic narrative of Freud''s last two years, when he fled Nazi-occupied Vienna for London, and the rise of Adolf Hitler

''As tense as any thriller ... Edmundson traces some very interesting links between Freud and Hitler'' Mail on Sunday

''Edmundson deftly entwines the gripping story of the dying Freud''s flight to England after the Anschluss in 1938 with a persuasive case for his standing as a political thinker ... riveting'' Guardian

When Hitler invaded Vienna in the winter of 1938, Sigmund Freud, old and desperately ill, was among the city''s 175,000 Jews dreading Nazi occupation.

Here Mark Edmundson traces Hitler and Freud''s oddly converging lives, then zeroes in on the last two years of Freud''s life, during which he was rescued and brought to London.

Edmundson probes Freud''s ideas about secular death and the rise of fascism and fundamentalism, and grapples with the demise of psychoanalysis after Freud''s death now that religious fundamentalism is once again shaping world events.