Recently I received in the mail an advertising brochure for the History of Childhood Quarterly, a publication committed to the assumptions and objectives of psychohistory. I read psychohistory before I knew there was such a thing, particularly in the fascinating studies of Luther and Gandhi by Erik Erickson, and certainly before I was aware that the subject was such a controversial one among historians, who are perhaps now wondering: Do the insights of depth psychology reveal hitherto hidden causes of historic events, or do they represent a dangerous intrusion of a discipline that is imprecise enough when working with living subjects, let alone long dead ones? Was the Jewish doctor who poisoned Hitler's mother while operating on her for breast cancer a causative factor in Hitler's later decision to remove the Jewish cancer from German culture? Was Nixon's vi gorous prosecution of the war in Vietnam connected with his childhood worries about being a sissy? Was President John F. Kennedy affected as Chief Executive by his unconscious belief that his parents didn't really love him?