Ludy T. Benjamin

No subject captures the attention of people today more than psychology. It pervades television in the form of soap operas, celebrity court cases, police and hospital dramas, talk shows, "reality" shows, and infomercials. It is the stuff of movies, magazines, plays, novels, self-help books, sports, jobs, music lyrics, talk radio, and the internet. In A Brief History of Modern Psychology, Ludy Benjamin, a leading historian in the field, discusses the history of both the science and the practice of psychology since the establishment of the first experimental psychology laboratory in 1879. In an engaging prose, this book weaves together the historical and disciplinary context that will help readers to better understand the richness and complexity of contemporary psychology.

Although sport psychology did not fully mature as a recognized discipline until the 1960s, pioneering psychologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, making greater use of empirical research methodologies, sought to understand mental factors that affect athletic performance. Though the psychologists behind the studies described here worked independently of one another and charted their own distinct courses of inquiry, their works, taken together, provided the corpus of precedents and foundations on which the modern field of sport psychology was built. The essays collected in this volume tell the stories not only of these psychologists and their subjects but of the social and academic context that surrounded them, shaping and being shaped by their ideas.

The private thoughts, emotions, hopes, and frustrations contained in this collection of letters written by key figures in psychology provide rich insight into the development of the field. From John Locke writing parenting advice in seventeenth century Holland to Kenneth B. Clark responding to the impact of his research on the nineteenth century Brown v. Board decision, this book illustrates the history of the psychology in a direct, engaging manner. Using primary source materials such as letters and journal entries, Ludy Benjamin, one of the leading historians in the field, provides students with a unique view of the story of psychology. -- Publisher description