In ten chapters filled with literary examples and historical evidence of astonishing diversity, a major historian of psychoanalysis develops enough theses for several books. Acknowledging stereotypes as necessary and ubiquitous, Gilman traces some important destructive ones from Aristotle to the present: women, Jews, and blacks seen as repositories of sex, disease, and madness. Embracing history, philosophy, psychology, public health, and the arts, this landmark work clears a path through terrain strewn with false historical pointers, and puts Freud's influence in a welcome new light.