‘War, politics, and ideas’ outlines Freud’s later ideas and refers to the political circumstances prevailing between 1914 and 1945. Early analysts endured the rise of anti-Semitism in Vienna, shrill nationalism and militarism, and the devastation of World War I. This was followed by a terrible flu epidemic, years of economic crisis, the rise of fascism, the breakdown of peace, Hitler’s seizure of power, and ever-intensifying racial persecution. A new world order emerged after 1945, swiftly shadowed by the prospect of an all-annihilating nuclear exchange. Psychoanalysis was profoundly affected by the century in which it developed, and in turn provided a language that many people thought useful to think about politics and society in the ‘age of extremes’.