Borch-Jacobsen (comparative literature & French, Univ. of Washington; The Black Book of Psychoanalysis) and Shamdasani (psychoanalysis, Univ. Coll. London; Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology) offer their 2006 book, Le dossier Freud, for the first time in English. Dividing the book into quarters, they explore and deconstruct the received history and the insider politics of psychoanalysis. They challenge Freud's self-image as an intellectual epoch-maker like Copernicus and Darwin. While the latter were rational scientists who deflated beliefs in the centrality of Earth in the universe and in humans as a product of divine creation, Freud taught that our unconscious trumps rationality. Armed with detailed evidence, the authors charge Freudians with failing to validate their scientific claims of theory and practice and with orchestrating the indefinite embargo of Freud's most sensitive papers in the Library of Congress. VERDICT This is a valuable resource for historians of psychology, science, and society, though the academic jargon limits it to a scholarly audience. An insightful, penetrating indictment, the book does not explore why Freud's theories, based on such flimsy evidence, attracted so much attention and so many partisans—professionals and intellectuals generally—in the 20th century.—E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC