pWhile many of Freud's original formulations have required either revision or rejection and replacement with newer models, his cultural books, such asi Civilization and Its Discontents iand iTotem and Tabooi, though extremely influential in the early part of the 20th centuryi, i have more recently been either neglected or else dismissed as long-outdated fantasies. pRobert A. Paul shows that Freud's ideas in these books, and his thinking on how human society is possible, given the unpromising materials out of which it is constructed i.e. human beings, can appear in a different and more favorable light when viewed through the lens of contemporary anthropology, cultural studies, and evolutionary theory.p