Totem and Taboo

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 370K words
Chapters: 37

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Totem and Taboo by Sigmund FreudAuthor: Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939,Language: English, Class: RC: Medicine: Internal medicine, Release Date: Oct 28, 2012

Editor's review

Totem and Taboo is Freud's important attempt to extend the psychoanalytic perspective to questions of anthropology and the origins of religion. The book centers on the incest taboo, the phenomenon of taboo, animism, and the totemic system, seeking to explain the formation of collective cultural institutions through individual psychological mechanisms; its analysis of the dual nature of taboo (the coexistence of the sacred and the unclean) is especially illuminating. As an interdisciplinary text, its value lies not in offering conclusive anthropological findings but in demonstrating an intellectual path that interprets the origins of civilization through psychology, and it is highly useful for understanding twentieth-century intellectual history and the development of psychoanalysis. This edition is a Project Gutenberg electronic version in the original English, suitable as academic reading or seminar material. It should be read not as an empirical scientific work but rather as a document of intellectual history; reading it alongside background knowledge in anthropology and religious studies is more rewarding.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students and researchers in psychology, anthropology, or religious studies
Readers interested in Freud's thought and the history of psychoanalysis
Those who wish to understand early twentieth-century interdisciplinary intellectual history
Advanced readers with English reading ability willing to study the original text

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking reliable empirical anthropological conclusions
General readers without a psychology background seeking an easy introduction
Readers who have significant difficulty reading the English original

Reading tips

Read the chapter on the dual nature of taboo first, then return to the section on the incest taboo for clearer logical continuity.
Read alongside basic materials in anthropology or religious studies, and avoid treating the book's hypotheses as established conclusions.
Record Freud's core chain of reasoning as you read to distinguish speculation from argument.
If reading the English original, first read the introductory chapters to grasp the overall framework before close reading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable as an introductory anthropology text?

Not really. It is more a work of thought that explains cultural origins through a psychoanalytic framework, and its historical hypotheses are not empirical conclusions of modern anthropology. To learn anthropology, one should first read an disciplinary introduction and then read this book as material in intellectual history.

What prior knowledge is needed to read this book?

It is advisable to have some understanding of Freud's basic concepts (such as the unconscious and repression) and a preliminary acquaintance with anthropological topics such as totemism, taboo, and animism. With this background, the book's reasoning will be much easier to follow.

What are the features of this edition?

This edition is the English electronic version released by Project Gutenberg, a public-domain free ebook that is easy to search and carry. It does not include notes or an introduction from modern translations; readers who need辅助 understanding may pair it with relevant research materials.

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About the author

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 Author

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was the founder of psychoanalysis, and his writings have had a profound influence on modern psychology and on cultural and intellectual history. The library holds 29 of his works, covering the interpretation of dreams, introductory lectures on psychoanalysis, theories of sexuality, the psychopathology of everyday life, and themes such as beyond the pleasure principle, the uncanny, group psychology, and the analysis of the ego, as well as a beginner's reader on dream psychology. These works generally combine clinical observation with theoretical reasoning; their style is clear and speculative, and they often begin from everyday slips, dreams, and neurotic phenomena to reveal the mechanisms of unconscious activity. Freud's writing spans both the professional and the popular, establishing a new framework of questions for psychology and deeply influencing literature, art, and the humanities. Because public information is limited, his specific biography and academic career are not elaborated here.