A review by ahmadothman
Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud

4.0

Freud had a great aim with this book. He wanted to relate the social structures of forbiddance and dread to their origins by a comparison to totemic and taboo systems of primitive tribes around the world - referred to as savages in a fashion true to his era - with the primal thoughts of patients with neurosis while drawing a nearly impeccable social and psychological critique that is somehow Darwinian in its contribution to psychoanalysis; a field he devised and cemented. My only gripes with the book is his disregard to the difference between psychological phenomena and their social reasoning. A critique that is shared and pointed out by a lot of social critiques and famous feminists and anthropologists. And his belief in the european superiority which made his vision myopic on certain aspects of cultural interaction. But he admitted to both in the epilogue of this book