ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM If a man cannot live with freedom, he will probably turn to fascism. This concise statement reflects the central idea of ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM, ERICH FROMM's most famous and very likely his most important book. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Dr. FROMM uncovers the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule. The rise of democracy set some men free politically, while at the same time giving birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. In this important and challenging work, Dr. FROMM considers the causes of this phenomenon to be found in the minds of all men, and examines the often appalling results. ERICH FROMM was born in 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. He studied sociology at the universities of Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Munich, receiving a Ph.D. degree from Heidelberg in 1922. He was later trained in psychoanalysis, and since 1925 has been a consulting psychologist and theoretician, applying psychoanalytic theory to the problems of culture and society