The history of psychoanalysis has primarily been told through idealized biographies of its founder, Sigmund Freud. In contrast, Makari weaves these individual voices into a multifaceted panorama. Drawing on new archival material and ten years of intensive research, he brings to life the period from 1870 to 1945 before the reader's mind, from the birth of psychoanalysis in Vienna to its expulsion from Europe by fascism. Makari places Freud's early psychological work in the context of the significant changes that shook European sciences in the late 19th century, portraying Freud as a creative, interdisciplinary synthesizer whose grounding in existing fields of study led to the creation of Freudian theory. He traces the development of the heterogeneous movement of the Young.