Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom

"They are innovative in ways that are still today being recalled and refined as his new science has taken strong hold on how we think about ourselves ..."

"He shows Freud—and, more crucially, those around him—navigating the gaps between abstract awareness of danger and personal decisiveness, against the backdrop of historical events unfolding in real time."

"Saving Freud tells the story of a group of people—including Freud's daughter Anna and her lover, Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham (heiress to the Tiffany & Co."

"Andrew Nagorski spikes his thriller with truly terrifying notes...Shortly before the dash for freedom, two of Freud's children, Anna and Martin, were questioned by the Gestapo...They had taken the precaution of asking Schur for a deadly barbiturate to take if torture ensued...Moreover, four of Freud's elderly sisters stayed in Austria; three perished in Treblinka, while the fourth starved to death...At the end of this otherwise excellent book we are still left pondering how Freud himself, whose work was all about facing up to the unpleasant realities of human life, could carry on believing for so long that he alone could give History the slip...A gripping account of how colleagues and admirers spirited the psychoanalyst from Nazi-controlled Vienna to London."

"an insight-filled group portrait of the founder of psychoanalysis and his followers."

"Journalist Nagorski reveals that Freud, who was 81 years old and struggling with cancer when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, was in deep denial of the danger he faced as a Jew and as the founder of psychoanalysis, which the Nazis deemed 'Jewish pseudoscience'...Though Freud's relationships with Carl Jung and Albert Einstein are discussed, the focus is on those credited with getting him out of Europe, including Welsh psychoanalyst Ernest Jones; William Bullitt, the U.S."

"A richly contextual look at Freud's escape to London...Though veteran journalist and author Nagorski delivers a riveting page-turner, German troops don't enter Austria until Page 230, and Freud leaves on Page 254...Few readers will complain once they realize that the narrative is a fine biography of Freud...The author pays close attention to his subject's early life and struggles and the development of psychoanalysis, which, focused on childhood sexuality and the unconscious, enraged as many as it fascinated and made Freud an international celebrity by 1900...Nagorski doesn't ignore Freud's early followers (Jung, Adler), many of whom who were out of the picture by the 1930s, but he maintains a sharp focus on a small group who remained loyal, again delivering complete, satisfying biographies that don't emphasize the rescue...Excellent biographies of Freud and some contemporaries."

"Nagorski tells a riveting new story, one that shows just how narrow Freud's escape from the Nazi genocide was ..."