Excellent introduction to the thought of William James - one of the founders of Psychology as a serious academic field. This volume takes excerpts from the writing of James to summarise his thoughts on each of the most important areas of his contribution: habit, stream of consciousness, the self, attention, association, memory, reasoning, instinct, the will, and also from his classic The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Each section is briefly introduced and clearly summarised by the compiler of this volume, Margaret Knight. There is also an informative introduction to the volume giving some relevant detail on James' upbringing - the exceptional environment that produced not only him but also his famous novelist brother Henry James.

Though the work of William James is now well over a 100 years old, it has aged particularly well compared to that of most of his contemporaries and successors. Indeed, many of the insights are relevant still now, with the only main area to seem particularly dated being his speculation on the working of the neural matter. Not to say that it is misleading or particularly wrong, we just know a lot more about it now.

James' writing style is particularly engaging, and he has a talent for apt analogies which aid the illustration of the various concepts he introduces.
Definitely a good volume to start out with if you were interested in reading more of his works, or psychology in general. ( )