Synopses & Reviews
What is psychoanalysis? Whereas there was once a time when proponents of "mainstream psychoanalysis" could point to the preeminence of Freud's drive theory and the version of the human condition associated with it-man as seeking pleasure in an erotically tinged universe-contemporary psychoanalysis is a fractured and contentious discipline in which competing theories share little more than the basic concepts of unconscious mental processes, repression, and transference.
Taking the complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions engendered by psychoanalysis over the past several decades as an encouraging point of departure rather than as evidence of the dissolution of the "psychoanalytic tradition," Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition makes explicit how, within each major theory, a particular story about the nature of the world and what it means to be human decisively shapes how the clinician conceptualizes individual psychopathology and approaches treatment. A chorus of voices that both challenges and reaffirms the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition asks urgent questions-about the politics of psychoanalytic knowledge, and about how the profession is situated and operates in our contemporary culture. Whether Freudian, Jungian, Kleinian, Kohutian, Lacanian, or hybrid, the clinician will find this book a useful guide to understanding how each theory's "philosophy of life" infuses clinical work.
Synopsis
America's relationship with Japan recently passed its 140th anniversary. Over that period, hundreds of books and thousands of articles have explored different issues or periods of the relationship. Yet within that vast library, no book has analyzed the entire relationship from the beginning to the present. In
Power Across the Pacific, William R. Nester fills this void, analyzing both the geopolitical phase of America's relationship with Japan (1853-1945) and its geoeconomic phase, from 1945 to the present day.
William R. Nester systematically untangles the interrelated perceptions, convergent and divergent national interests, and shifting power relations that have shaped relations between the two countries. Along the way he identifies the key foreign policy figures for both countries, revealing the ways in which domestic and international interests on both sides affected their interactions. Power Across the Pacific can serve both as a definitive study of the history of U.S.-Japanese relations, as well as a reference for particular periods within that history.
About the Author
William R. Nester is Assistant Professor of Political Science at St. John's University of New York. He has served as Lecturer in Far East Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and is the author of Japan's Growing Power Over East Asia and the World Economy, Japanese Industrial Targeting, Japan and the Third World, and American Power: the New World Order and the Japanese Challenge.