A few years after Austria's disastrous defeat in the First World War, Vienna, a city hardly known for intellectual fervor or serious discourse, suddenly emerged as a mecca for psychology. At a time seemingly most unpropitious for scholarly speculation, interbellum Vienna, economically and spiritually bankrupt at its onset, enjoyed a brief, remarkable two decades of excellence and innovation in an unfamiliar realm, that of abstract ideas. The most notable beneficiary of this intellectual Zeitgeist was the field of psychology; Viennese psychology became famous and its gurus and gadflies became world figures.

This is the first book to present that history within the context of the political and social events of the time. Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Otto Rank, Karl Buhler, Erik Erikson, and Helene Deutsch were among the hundreds of famous psychologists who lived in Vienna and established training centers there. Not only were the historical events momentous, but Vienna's psychologists were often politically active and subversive. Since a majority of them were socialist and Jewish, Vienna's leading psychologists emigrated when Austria was annexed by Germany, abruptly ending the Golden Age.

This work presents a new theory of personality development for males, one that emphasizes gender differences in biological maturation and in socialization practices that pressure boys to become emotionally independent too soon. Stevens and Gardner believe that in extreme cases males grow up harboring a primitive, unconscious dread of being abandoned that prevents them from handling separation experiences successfully. As women become more assertive in relationships, there are more female-terminated relationships, especially divorces. As psychologists, Stevens and Gardner noticed that rejected husbands were often more at risk than their estranged wives because most men are victims of the traditional socialization techniques that deny them easy access to emotional expression and support groups. Drawing from a range of disciplines, including sociology, primatology, anthropology, and psychology, the authors draw portraits of common male personality types, many of which are ill-equipped for self-fulfilling independent adult life.