Customer Reviews

The Story of Psychology

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I teach psychology and one of the areas I emphasize is bringing people "alive" from the history of psych. This book does it! I now have even more background info. The students remember the theorist if they can attach him/her to events and historical data. They can also can see the theorist in relationship to their "life and times", the "Zeitgeist", and how that interacts with theory. An excellent reference book for those of us who teach, and a wonderful resource for good lecture naterial!

As a high school student in the International Baccalaureate Program, I took a psychology course. After a situation out of my hands resulted in our teacher's leaving us for five months, I went to the library looking for psych books. I found this one and checked it out. The next week, I purchased the same book. Hunt discusses in great detail the historical conditions leading to the prevalance of Freud, then of Watson and Skinner, then of Rogers, and discusses modern cognitivism, social psychology, and neurobiology. He draws on hundreds of published and reputed studies, particularly in his chapters on more recent advances in the field of psychology, which are of course referenced. I am using a study which I learned of from his book for my Internal Assessment in this class, which now has the original teacher (for better or for worse). Had I outlined our syllabus, I would have used this book, as it has been my source for all of the information I have amassed to study for my IB test in May. Anyone with even a passing interest in psychology should purchase Hunt's work, which will not only pique their interest, it will become the foundation upon which so much more can be added.

As a historical work, this is the most readable, entertaining, and interesting book I can recall. Hunt includes lively, animating biographies of each historical figure, giving them a personality beyond the ordinary dry treatments of these great people. Besides making for entertaining reading, The Story of Psychology is easily more informative than any book on the subject that I have seen. The reader can choose any section of the book, divided neatly by fundamental psychological camps (the Behaviorists, the Personality Psychologists, etc.) and become aptly informed on the focus of that group, its leaders, and its place in the history of Psychology. This book is highly recommended.

This is the worst book on the history of ideas that I've ever read. The writing style is very low quality, and the word 'psychology' is constantly used in places where the words 'philosophy', 'ontology', or 'metaphysics' should be used for accuracy. The author seems more interested in discussing how theorists looked physically (completely irrelevant) rather than forming an intricate, cohesive summary of each theorist. Moreover, he does ridiculous things like say "the rest of this philosopher's work was rightfully ignored" in reference to Leibniz here. Obviously he does not understand the history of the philosophy of mind enough to recognize that Leibniz had an intricate theory of the unconscious mind 200 years before Freud did. He also seems to think he knows what is true and is constantly declaring various theoretical premises as 'true' or 'false' (which is very childish language) and he also very annoying often uses words like 'right' and 'wrong', etc. Also, he leaves out several important theorists and concepts in the history leading up to what we now call clinical psychology (e.g.: the existentialists, Foucault, Laing, and countless others). This author is extremely narrow in his views, which scream through the pages, showing an unsophisticated writer behind the words, and he does not truly understand what he is writing about in many cases; especially the philosophers.

I first read this book during the 7th grade and once again just recently as an adult(I'm 21 right now). For the most part, this book seems well written, but I realized upon reading it for the second time that the book doesn't mention Friedrich Nietzsche at all. He played an important role in influencing psychology, especially the theories of Sigmund Freud. I found it unbelievable that nothing was mentioned of Nietzsche. Apart from this flaw, however, the book still proved to be an interesting, informative read. Recommended.

Although a nice overview of the history of psychology, Morton Hunt's Story of Psychology isn't objective or serious enough to be considered a seminal work in the social science. To his credit, however, he does attempt to take an increasingly drab subject matter and bring it into the context of modern humanistic literature. As a result, what you end up with is a tweener book: not serious (or accurate) enough for the psychological crowd, but too scientific for the average reader. This book is mainly for first year psychology students and/or psychology-curious independent readers.

There are two main criticisms of this book (which seem to be present in most reviews): 1.) This 800+ page volume is overwrought with physical descriptions of the philosophers and scientists - something that is completely unnecessary and takes a great deal away from the focus of the tome; 2.) Hunt is extremely critical of philosophers (especially the early philosophers) and shows a great deal of bias and disdain for any line of thinking that isn't up to par with his ideas of truly objective science (whether his ideas are correct or not). It is because of these two main criticisms that the value of this book gets knocked down a notch.

As an example of critique number two above, concluding his review of Hume's work, Hunt makes the statement: "Ironically, the empiricism and associationism that Hume meant to be the foundation of his system of morals live on; his system of morals, a gentle utilitarianism, is quite forgotten."

Hunt is wrong.

David Hume's ethical theory - commonly known as the "passions" - is a form of virtue ethics, not utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is often noted as "the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people." This deals with consequence. Utilitarian-like ethical theories are often called consequentialism because of this. Hume's passions have nothing to do with consequence, but instead deal with the passions arising from a human being to incite action. This deals with sentiment and character. This is virtue ethics.

Furthermore, Hunt's notion that Hume's moral philosophy is quite forgotten is wrong as well. Hume's "passions" are probably behind only Aristotle's ethics and rights-based ethics when it comes to popular virtue ethics.

The meat of this book lies with the foundation of psychology as a science (during the Wundt and James days) up to about the cognitive revolution. What comes before - although informative - is peppered too often with Hunt's bias (i.e. his views on the philosophers), while what comes after is often dry and acts mainly as a summary of current psychological research, thought and news. The problem is that a shift occurs in this book as it transitions to the cognitive revolution. The book mostly starts as an examination of important figures in psychology and the ideas that they brought to the table, but once the cognitive revolution rolls around, this focus shifts to the sub-disciplines and theories of psychology with important people merely serving as narrators for the subject matter. It is a jarring shift that often leaves you wondering how many pages you have left before you can put the book down.

Even with that said, anyone interested in the history of psychology should pick this book up. Despite the complaints, it is usually thorough and tries to maintain an entertaining narrative. You just need to keep an open mind and realize that you are seeing psychology through Morton Hunt's own filter and not necessarily from an objective perspective.

This book is a very well organized and presented history of the development of psychology and survey of current research and clinical applications in psychology. The writing style is accessible and fluid, and the details provided create a colorful and humanistic aspect to the historical figures portrayed.
I partially agree with other reviewers/critics of this book that many important contributors to the field were left out or marginalized, but I think the book is close to the limit of what can be contained in a single, readable volume, so something had to be left out. It is, after all, the author's and editor's prerogative to choose who and what to emphasize.
Other's have criticized the author's tendency to give us his opinion on just what work of a contributor was important to the development of psychology and what was not. I actually found this refreshing, since so many text books are so carefully neutral, or so fawning, that they skip the very interesting fact that a lot of these polymath geniuses were also crackpots (think of Leibniz and monads). A point of view which helps us to maintain a healthy skepticism about their ideas.
My main criticism of the book (and the reason why it only gets 4 out of 5) is the extreme western slant. To read this book you would think that, besides a couple of exceptions, no one outside of the US or Western Europe ever made any kind of contribution to psychology, or the philosophy of mind. We have a whole section of the book devoted to classical philosophy, and chapters devoted to early Christian thinkers, but only a single mention of any eastern philosophy of any kind (near the end). Otherwise, not even a hint.
I look forward to a new edition that covers recent research and perhaps corrects the omission of over half the worlds contributions to the field...

Hunt tries to do a good job in making the subject matter interesting, but in doing so he devotes so much space to anecdotes that he leaves out a lot of more pertinent information. Also, he does not give a neutral history of psychology, but instead displays empirical biases and a bias of psychology as a science throughout the book, writing at more length about philosophers and psychologists who agree with him and dismissing, ridiculing, and understating those who do not. For a non-biased history of the philosophical roots of psychology, try Robert MacLeod's Persistant Problems of Psychology. Unfortunately, though, that book only has the philosophic background of psychology and does not enter into the history of psychology in the 20th century.

In the last year I have become interested in psychology. I have read Freud and Jung, besides being familiar with philosophy from the ancients to the present. This book has been the first organized work on psychology that I have read. And it has changed my perceptions of the purpose of science.
My former conceptions of psychology brought images of a patient being analyzed using free association. This, although important, is only one substratum of psychological research. Theories that influence our every day lives, such as how we learn, are an integral part of psychology that I had never imagined. I now understand the significance of laboratory tests that we are all familiar with (mice in mazes, chimpanzees trying to reach bananas) that have formerly seemed without worth, and merely pedantic dissertation.
It is important, when beginning study in any field, to have an historical background from which to begin. As I have learned from this book, human learning forms itself into structures that can be easily referenced. Without structure, everything humans learn is without meaning. This informative book provides the historical structure needed to understand the importance of modern discoveries, and should be read by anyone interested in beginning study of psychology.

This book was assigned to my History and Systems of Psychology class as our textbook. My professor promised to the class on the first day that this was a book for a class that we would: 1) actually want to ready and 2) wouldn't be able to put down. I did not take his comment seriously at right but he was right! This book is highly readable, grabs your attention from the start, and keeps you wanting to turn to the next page. It tackles psychology (and often cases science as a whole) as a process that started hundreds of years ago. Hunt introduces the reader to many famous thinkers, and many unknowns to the average person, who had an effect (whether positive or negative) on the development of psychology as we know it today. If you are at all curious as to why psychology exists today and who developed its ideas, then this book is a must read!