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If you’re interested in Psychology, this covers almost all of the founding fathers and major advances in psychological thought.
The author does his best to summarize the main ideas of each author and their most well known works and often will add other achievements at the end. He also does a short bio of the authors at the end of each chapter.
I thought that the complicated psychological ideas were explained in a way that just about anyone could understand while keeping enough quotations to get the sense of the original authors style and thoughts.
My only gripe with this is not a writing one, just that it’s hard to get through this because of the complex subject matter and the various different ways views. Trying to absorb it all can be mentally taxing. Take breaks, is my suggestion or your brain might malfunction.
Overall, thus was a really great refresher for me and allowed me to deepen my knowledge of many of the household names of psychology, as well as learning about newer ones I hadn’t heard of before. Unfortunately, it’s added a lot of books to be TBR. Haha
The author does his best to summarize the main ideas of each author and their most well known works and often will add other achievements at the end. He also does a short bio of the authors at the end of each chapter.
I thought that the complicated psychological ideas were explained in a way that just about anyone could understand while keeping enough quotations to get the sense of the original authors style and thoughts.
My only gripe with this is not a writing one, just that it’s hard to get through this because of the complex subject matter and the various different ways views. Trying to absorb it all can be mentally taxing. Take breaks, is my suggestion or your brain might malfunction.
Overall, thus was a really great refresher for me and allowed me to deepen my knowledge of many of the household names of psychology, as well as learning about newer ones I hadn’t heard of before. Unfortunately, it’s added a lot of books to be TBR. Haha
Because of my work (editing the teaching materials for online graduate courses in Psychology, among other majors), I see a lot of names of people who have made important contributions to many different avenues of study in psych. Obviously, I don't have time to go back and read the writings of every single one of these luminaries. So this glimpse into their writings and the "In a Nutshell" style in which the main idea(s) for which each is primarily venerated was just what I needed---not only to sate my curiosity, but also for professional development as someone who spends a lot of time editing course materials about these topics.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
For people wishing to engross themselves in knowledge this book is for you.
I just want to say I felt that this book really needs another 200-250 pages as so of the books need explaining more.
I did love this book I know have a reading list of about 15 books of which I give thanks to. The layout of this book was just perfect with Consistency in the sections. This lead to an ease in reading as I could read a few sections at a time.
This allowed me to absorb the information easier.
I'm looking forward to reading other books by him 😁
I just want to say I felt that this book really needs another 200-250 pages as so of the books need explaining more.
I did love this book I know have a reading list of about 15 books of which I give thanks to. The layout of this book was just perfect with Consistency in the sections. This lead to an ease in reading as I could read a few sections at a time.
This allowed me to absorb the information easier.
I'm looking forward to reading other books by him 😁
I enjoyed this book, which provided Reader's Digest style previews of the main themes of 50 Psychology books. The detail was in-depth enough to give you a very clear picture of the main ideas in each book. One warning however, I had a friend who read the book declare that since he got the main thrust of the 50 classics, he now didn't need to purchase them. I have read several of those 50 classics and I would have missed out on a lot of entertaining and informative reading if I had made the same assumption.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Very long audio book...
This was the science-literary equivalent of a "NOW! This is what I call Psychology!" album, playing all of the "hits" from the past 175ish years.
I did not get the impression that the author/editor themselves knew much about psychology and hadn't worked in the field, but was just reporting their research on others' research. Seeing that the author has also produced similar books but pertaining to philosophy, religion, economics, and so forth, I suppose that makes sense. And not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, but as someone who's read and studied in greater detail a lot of the stuff the author talks about, I can't help but feel that some crucial details were left out.
My main beef is that, similar to most all "Intro to Psychology" college courses, most of the stuff the public considers "psychology" is outdated and scientifically obsolete. While Freud rightly deserves a lot of credit for pulling psychology out of the realm of pseudo-science and starting the process of hypothesizing, observing, and comparing to get that whole brain thing figured out, most of his theories about the subconscious and treatment have been shown to not hold much water and are no longer accepted among the vast majority of scientific and counseling professions. The same goes for folks like Jung and Myers-Briggs.
The problem is that this book essentially still reports these folks as if they're fact, spending 30-45 minutes on a subject, but then might spend 30 seconds at the end of a chapter saying something along the lines of "Today, some psychologists are skeptical..."
The author also throws Malcolm Gladwell into the mix, who is a journalist with no scientific background. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as I think we need more scientific reporting in the country. Except Gladwell has stated he uses the research he finds to tell the best stories, throwing out the boring bits, ignoring the contrary evidence, and exaggerating the research so it sounds more "fun" in order to make his books best sellers. That's pretty bad for research, and whenever I hear somebody say "psychology isn't a real science!" I blame the folks like him for mischaracterizing the subject matter and in the end making the non-scientific community doubt the process and findings of actual research.
But, with that off my chest, 50 Psychology Classics is a useful jumping off place to learn about other realms of psychology research you may not have been aware of and the books one should read to gain more knowledge. I most certainly added a few more books to my Goodreads "Want to Read" shelf in the process of listening to this one. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sounds legit, yo.
The audio book itself is a long 12-hour beast, and I had to keep digitally checking it out of my library every couple of weeks to finish it (thanks Hoopla!). The author is a little.... quiet and monotone, so my mind drifted back and forth often. I'd frequently move the book position back 30 minutes or so because I had no idea what was talked about. :/
This book is probably best suited for those brand new to the wonderful world of psychology, or those needing something to listen along to while they take an into to psych course. If you were a psych major back in the day, you've already heard most of it. And I'm hurt that the author didn't talk much about I/O or Human Factors psychology.
Positive psychology, the study of making people happier, does get a large chunk of attention near the end of the book though. And I think more folks should personally research that particular line of study as most seemingly have a very poor idea of what exactly it takes to achieve that.
This was the science-literary equivalent of a "NOW! This is what I call Psychology!" album, playing all of the "hits" from the past 175ish years.
I did not get the impression that the author/editor themselves knew much about psychology and hadn't worked in the field, but was just reporting their research on others' research. Seeing that the author has also produced similar books but pertaining to philosophy, religion, economics, and so forth, I suppose that makes sense. And not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, but as someone who's read and studied in greater detail a lot of the stuff the author talks about, I can't help but feel that some crucial details were left out.
My main beef is that, similar to most all "Intro to Psychology" college courses, most of the stuff the public considers "psychology" is outdated and scientifically obsolete. While Freud rightly deserves a lot of credit for pulling psychology out of the realm of pseudo-science and starting the process of hypothesizing, observing, and comparing to get that whole brain thing figured out, most of his theories about the subconscious and treatment have been shown to not hold much water and are no longer accepted among the vast majority of scientific and counseling professions. The same goes for folks like Jung and Myers-Briggs.
The problem is that this book essentially still reports these folks as if they're fact, spending 30-45 minutes on a subject, but then might spend 30 seconds at the end of a chapter saying something along the lines of "Today, some psychologists are skeptical..."
The author also throws Malcolm Gladwell into the mix, who is a journalist with no scientific background. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as I think we need more scientific reporting in the country. Except Gladwell has stated he uses the research he finds to tell the best stories, throwing out the boring bits, ignoring the contrary evidence, and exaggerating the research so it sounds more "fun" in order to make his books best sellers. That's pretty bad for research, and whenever I hear somebody say "psychology isn't a real science!" I blame the folks like him for mischaracterizing the subject matter and in the end making the non-scientific community doubt the process and findings of actual research.
But, with that off my chest, 50 Psychology Classics is a useful jumping off place to learn about other realms of psychology research you may not have been aware of and the books one should read to gain more knowledge. I most certainly added a few more books to my Goodreads "Want to Read" shelf in the process of listening to this one. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sounds legit, yo.
The audio book itself is a long 12-hour beast, and I had to keep digitally checking it out of my library every couple of weeks to finish it (thanks Hoopla!). The author is a little.... quiet and monotone, so my mind drifted back and forth often. I'd frequently move the book position back 30 minutes or so because I had no idea what was talked about. :/
This book is probably best suited for those brand new to the wonderful world of psychology, or those needing something to listen along to while they take an into to psych course. If you were a psych major back in the day, you've already heard most of it. And I'm hurt that the author didn't talk much about I/O or Human Factors psychology.
Positive psychology, the study of making people happier, does get a large chunk of attention near the end of the book though. And I think more folks should personally research that particular line of study as most seemingly have a very poor idea of what exactly it takes to achieve that.
Odd book about books and I imagine a completely subject view of the 50 psychology classics but enjoyable none the less. I have set myself a challenge to read all the books in a year. So far I'm struggling through book one The Divided Self. Only 49 to go.
I listened to this book and think it would have been better read.