Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was born in Moravia and lived in Vienna. In 1938, Hitler's invasion of Austria forced him to seek asylum in London, where he died in the following year. His career began with several years of brilliant work on the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. He was almost thirty when, after a period of study under Charcot in Paris, his interests first turned to psychology, and another ten years of clinical work in Vienna saw the birth of his creation, psychoanalysis. Freud's ideas have shaped not only many specialist disciplines, but the whole intellectual climate of the twentieth century.