Civilization and Its Discontents

Freud's masterpiece, 1929's Civilization and Its Discontents, stands as a brilliant summary of his development of psychoanalytic theory. It is both witness and tribute to the late theory of mind—the so-called structural theory, with its stress on aggression, indeed the death drive, as the pitiless adversary of eros. The book is set against the vast background of Freud's vision of human development from infancy to maturity and through old age, a vision that illuminates his concern for the problems inherent in modern civilization.