Features
ISBN Number: 9780814792872
Subtitle: Postcards from the End of the World
Author: Wolff, Larry
Author: Wolff, Larry
Publisher: New York University Press
Location: New York :
Subject: Abuse
Subject: History
Subject: Austria
Subject: Social conditions
Subject: Child abuse
Subject: Western Europe
Subject: Vienna
Subject: Filicide
Subject: Vienna (Austria) Social conditions.
Subject: Abuse, General
Subject: Western Europe, General
Subject: General Psychology & Psychiatry
Subject: Freud, sigmund, 1856-1939
Subject: AUSTRIA_SOCIAL CONDITIONS
Subject: CHILD ABUSE_AUSTRIA
Subject: CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY_AUSTRIA
Subject: Austria & Hungary
Edition Description: Trade paper
Series Volume: no. 5
Publication Date: February 1995
Cover Type: Paperback
Grade Level: College/higher education:
Written in: English
Illustrations: Yes
Number of Pages: 275
Book Size: 9 x 6 in
"A powerful story, one that raises themes that still reverberate."—The New York Times
"Wolff tells us a great deal that is disturbing and fascinating both about turn-of-the-century Vienna and about the strange combination of love and loathing out of which child-abuse and even child-murder all too often spring."
—The Spectator
"Describes one of the great lost opportunities in European social thought. In the end, humankind could not bear very much reality. The waltz began once more, and it drowned the cries of the abused. Two generations elapsed before anyone heeded them again."
—New Statesman
On the cusp of the twentieth century, in the most cosmopolitan city in the world, there a sensation that entranced the city's populace as nothing had before—a sensation that cast a great and disturbing shadow over the city, and then vanished, leaving no more trace than a shadow would. Child Abuse in Freud's Vienna is the story of that forgotten sensation in this fabled city.
In the autumn of 1899, Vienna's attention was focused not on its extraordinary cultural life, but on child abuse—specifically, two cases of child murder and two of abuse. While Sigmund Freud was anxiously awaiting the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he first theorized about the Oedipal hostilities between parents and children, every day's headlines proclaimed the ugly reality of child abuse. Focusing on the four cases that dominated the pages of the newspapers, Larry Wolff's riveting narrative paints a picture of a great city enthralled by a spectacle it desperately wished to ignore.
Book News Annotation:
Reprint of the Atheneum edition (1988) titled Postcards From the End
of the World.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Synopsis:
On the cusp of the twentieth century, in the most cosmopolitan city in the world, there arose a sensation that entranced the city's populace as nothing had before--a sensation that cast a great and disturbing shadow over the city, and then vanished, leaving no more trace than a shadow would. This book is the story of that forgotten sensation in this fabled city. In the autumn of 1899, Vienna's attention was focused not on its extraordinary cultural life, but on child abuse--specifically, two cases of child murder and two of abuse.
Description:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-263) and index.
