A concise and thoughtful look at the history of developmental psychology. The book opens with an overview of the pre-scientific era including the first baby biographies published in Germany, America, and France during the 18th and 19th centuries, to the beginning of the child study movement of G. Stanley Hall. The primary content of the book will close with the coverage of the rapid developments occurring in the years immediately following the end of WWII. A concluding chapter summarizes the developments in the field in recent decades, and also serves to provide continuity between the discipline as we know it today and those events discussed from the past International developments in the field are ingetgreated throughout the book, presenting the book and events in their proper context. The authors avoid presenting history as a chronology of event. Instead they provide a life span view within an overall chronological structure. The authors also include, at relevant points within the manuscript, brief biographies of some of the individuals who helped develop this field.

Further, It is vital to understanding the story of developmental psychology to include a presentation of the global developments in the field and the individuals who made them. Some of these individuals would include, but would not be limited to, Charlotte B8hler, Edouard Clapar+de, Maria Montessori, and William Stern and others.