Escape from Freedom

Escape from Freedom is a book by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, first published in the United States by Farrar & Rinehart in 1941 with the title Escape from Freedom and a year later as The Fear of Freedom in UK by Routledge & Kegan Paul. It was translated into German and first published in 1952 under the title Die Angst vor der Freiheit (The Fear of Freedom). In the book, Fromm explores humanity's shifting relationship with freedom, how individual freedom can cause fear, anxiety and alienation, and how many people seek relief by relinquishing freedom. He describes how authoritarianism can be a mechanism of escape, with special emphasis on the psychosocial conditions that enabled the rise of Nazism.