On the Edge of the AbyssA history of the unconscious in public discourse before Freud and its significance for Jewish emancipation. When Sigmund Freud published his theory of the unconscious, in 1899, he popularized an idea that had fascinated generations of Jewish philosophers before him. In this book, Clmence Boulouque charts the development of the pre Freudian unconscious from subcultural inquiry to dominant discourse during the long nineteenth century. Although Freud's