Product Description

In his newest addition to the 50 Classics series, Butler-Bowden provides concise summaries and commentaries on fifty of the most influential works on the human mind and behavior, along with special features to provide additional context. Drawing on the rich vein of the classics as well as contemporary works, this book is a worthy addition to a series that has sold over 100,000 copies in English and been translated into 17 languages.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #63495 in Books
* Published on: 2007-01-25
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 324 pages

Editorial Reviews

VS Ramachandran, MD, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego
"This delightful book provides thoughtful and entertaining summaries of 50 of the most influential books in psychology. Its a "must read" for students contemplating a career in psychology."

From the Publisher
50 Psychology Classics is a thinking person's guide to popular psychology. In a journey that spans 50 books, hundreds of ideas, and over a century in time, it explores important contemporary writings such as Gladwell's Blink and Seligman's Authentic Happiness as well as wisdom from key figures in psychology's development.

EXPLORE the work of some of the greatest thinkers in psychology, including: Alfred Adler, Albert Ellis, Milton Erickson, Erik Erikson, Viktor Frankl, Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud, Harry Harlow, Karen Horney, William James, Carl Jung, Afred Kinsey, Melanie Klein, RD Laing, Abraham Maslow, Stanley Milgram, Ivan Pavlov, Fritz Perls, Jean Piaget, Carl Rogers, BF Skinner

GAIN insights into the scientific research of leading contemporary psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists.

DISCOVER why we think and act the way we do through the landmark bestsellers of psychology.

With insightful commentaries on each classic, biographical information on the authors, plus a guide to further key titles, 50 PSYCHOLOGY CLASSICS provides a unique overview of this fascinating subject.

From the Inside Flap
"A brilliant synthesis. With clarity and intelligence, the author makes complex ideas accessible and practical. I found myself thinking over and over again, Oh, that's what that guy meant."
Douglas Stone, Harvard Law School and co-author of Difficult Conversations

We would all like to know the secrets of human nature - who we are, how we think, and what we do. 50 PSYCHOLOGY CLASSICS explores writings from such iconic figures as Freud Adler, Jung, Skinner, James, Piaget, and Pavlov, and also highlights the work of contemporary psychologists such as Howard Gardner, Daniel Gilbert, and Martin Seligman. In addition, there are fascinating insights from writers and thinkers like Isabel Briggs Myers, Eric Hoffer, and William Styron.

The focus is on 'psychology for non psychologists', books that everyone can read and be enlightened by, or that were expressly written for a general audience. We are in a new golden age of popular psychology writing, and 50 PSYCHOLOGY CLASSICS reveals a diversity of ideas:

What happiness really is
How intuition can save your life
The secrets to better communication and influencing skills
The science behind successful relationships
Why smart people get swept up in mass movements

Also exploring some of psychology's most famous experiments and research, such as Stanley Milgram's chilling demonstrations of the human willingness to obey authority, Harry Harlow's work with baby monkeys revealing the importance of physical contact to mental health, and Alfred Kinsey's pot-stirring revelations about people's real sex lives, 50 PSYCHOLOGY CLASSICS highlights the often surprising scientific work that has changed what we believe about ourselves and what makes people tick.
Customer Reviews

Bulter-Bowdon Has delivered the quintessential text for psych majors or anyone wanting an overview of Psychology5
This is now the fourth CLassics book I've read and I have yet to be disappointed. I can't wait to pick up the continuation 50 More Psychology Classics.The Power of Inner Guidance: Seven Steps to Tune In and Turn On

An excellent guide to sources that can help us to "make a real difference" in our lives5

Previously, I read and reviewed Tom Butler-Bowdon's 50 Self-Help Classics and 50 Success Classics and was not surprised to find that his most recently published volume in the "50 Classics" series is their equal in terms of the quality and value of the material provided. Butler-Bowdon employs essentially the same format for the three volumes: brief background on each source, major insights, final comments, and mini-bio of author. The "great thinkers" he discusses in 50 Psychology Classics are also organized in alphabetical order, although I would have preferred (one man's opinion) that they had been organized within discrete thematic clusters, and not in alphabetical order but in terms of sequence of influence. Sigmund Freud followed by Carl Jung and Alfred Adler and then Anna Freud followed by B.F. Skinner, for example. Frankly, as I checked out the table of contents, I was initially surprised to see Edward de Bono, Howard Gardner, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Goleman, Steven Pinker, Gail Sheehy, and William Styron among the "iconic figures" listed so I read their segments first and, sure enough, Butler-Bowdon explains the inclusion of each.

In the Introduction, he provides an overview on the development of modern psychology as a field of study, once "early titans" (e.g. Williams James, Sigmund Freud, Jung, and Adler) had written books that the general public could understand. Within the Introduction, he also suggests seven themes that offer different perspectives on "who we are, how we think, and what we do" and assigns to each a cluster of relevant commentaries. Readers can then decide which themes are of greatest interest to them, and, on which selections to focus. For example, five sources are suggested for "Tapping the unconscious mind: Wisdom of a different kind." They are:

The Gift of Fear (Gavin de Becker)
My Voice Will Go With You (Milton Erickson by Sidney Rosen)
The Interpretation of Dreams (Sigmund Freud)
Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Carl Jung)

I read some books cover-to-cover sequentially; with others, I hop around back and forth in random fashion; with still others, I read strategically after checking out the table of contents, as I did with this one. My guess (only a guess) is the latter approach will work best for most readers and many may decide what to read and in what order after reviewing the seven thematic clusters in the Introduction. For those who feel overwhelmed by the number of books in print and need help selecting what will be of greatest interest to them, the volumes in the "50 Classics" series will be especially valuable.

I view Butler-Bowdon is an erudite "travel agent" for readers, but also as an enthusiastic "tour guide" who then accompanies them from one "landmark" to the next. One of this book's several value-added benefits is that Butler-Bowdon discusses several authors and works of which many (if not most) of his readers may have been previously unaware. He also does a skillful job of comparing and contrasting perspectives on a specific subject as in this volume, for example, when noting that a "central idea in Adlerian psychology is that individuals are always striving toward a goal. Whereas Freud saw us as driven by what was in our past, Adler had a teleological view - they we are driven by our goals, whether they are conscious or not."

Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check out the other volumes in the "50 Classics" series. To those in business, I also highly recommend several volumes in the Capstone reference series written by Des Dearlove, notably The Ultimate Book of Business Thinking.

Psychology overview for non-psychologists5
This book offers an engaging overview of 50, for the most part, widely popular psychology books as well as short biographies of their authors. Knowing the backgrounds of these psychologists helps to understand where they are coming from and what motivated them to explore a particular area of human mind, or behavior and arrive at particular conclusions.

Some of the authors covered are William James, Sigmund Freud, Karl Gustav Jung, Abraham Maslow, Dr. Milton Erickson (as a hypnotherapist, I was thrilled that he was mentioned here), Robert Cialdini, David Burns, and many others who have contributed not only to the greater understanding of human mind and behavior, but also to creating methods and techniques some appropriate for use within therapeutic environment and others designed to help people to use on their own to cope better with life's challenges, to feel better and to live more satisfying lives.