A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context

by D. Brett King, Wayne Viney

A detailed survey of intellectual traditions that contributed to the founding and historical development of psychology. Unusual features of early chapters include coverage of contributions of early female thinker such as Theana and Hypatia; brief overviews of psychological thought in documents from ancient Chinese, Indian, Persian, and Hebrew cultures; and equal emphasis on psychology's intellectual context and the quantitative techniques that allowed psychology to develop. Later chapters outline major systems of psychology, examining basic and applied contributions of each school. The volume includes chapter review questions and glossaries, and pronunciation guides for difficult names. This second edition reflects historical scholarship appearing since the first edition in 1993. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Genres: Psychology, History, Nonfiction, Textbooks

492 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[B · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is literally the worst textbook I've ever had the misfortune of reading. It's more or less just a list of people who impacted psychology starting with ancient philosophers. It's bullshit revisionist history that glosses over basically anything unpleasant, including the myriad of human rights abuses perpetuated by psychologists in the early days of the discipline that continued at least until the seventies. There's almost no social context in regards to anything that happened after the second world war, almost nothing on how psychology was used to justify eugenics, racism, or homophobia.

It's weird to me that I've heard so many people hailing this book as feminist, because there's like three white women included in the whole 500 page book. It does a /little/ better with men of colour, but man.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. I kept it from my undergrad and have referenced it in philosophy classes I have taken later. It hits the entire philosophical background to the discipline of psychology all the way back to Plato. It is concise in its descriptions and breaks down the sub disciplines of psychology really well. I am glad I had it on my shelf for my graduate work.

[Kaylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this perspective view of the history of psychology and the philosophical background. The Author was a professor at my college and spoke to our class about William James which made it all the better!

[Joevarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book, especially because of my term 1 class in my undergrad study. What I love here is that all theories about mind described since the earlier civilization, the golden age of Greece, middle age, renaissance and enlightenment era till the positive era (nowadays). Also, they introduced me with the three big force (school of thought) of psychology system. Reading this was simply an enjoyment.