These works were written against a background of war andracism. Freud sought the sources of conflict in the deepestmemories of humankind, finding clear continuities between our'primitive' past and 'civilized' modernity. In "Totem and Taboo",he explores institutions of tribal life, tracing analogies betweenthe rites of hunter-gatherers and the obsessions of urban-dwellers,while "Mourning and Melancholia" sees a similarly self-destructivesavagery underlying individual life in the modern age, which issuesat times in self-harm and suicide. And Freud's extraordinary letterto Einstein, Why War? - Rejecting what he saw as the physicist'snaive pacifism - sums up his unsparing view of history in a fewprofoundly pessimistic, yet grimly persuasive pages.

This title is one of fifteen volumes in the new Freud seriescommissioned for Penguin by series editor Adam Phillips. It is partof a plan to generate a new, non-specialist Freud for a widereadership, which goes way beyond the institutional/clinical marketand presents material to the reader in a new way. This volume willcontain "New Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis" and "AnOutline of Psychoanalysis".