Although a nice overview of the history of psychology, Morton Hunt's Story of Psychology isn't objective or serious enough to be considered a seminal work in the social science. To his credit, however, he does attempt to take an increasingly drab subject matter and bring it into the context of modern humanistic literature. As a result, what you end up with is a tweener book: not serious (or accurate) enough for the psychological crowd, but too scientific for the average reader. This book is mainly for first year psychology students and/or psychology-curious independent readers.

There are two main criticisms of this book (which seem to be present in most reviews): 1.) This 800+ page volume is overwrought with physical descriptions of the philosophers and scientists - something that is completely unnecessary and takes a great deal away from the focus of the tome; 2.) Hunt is extremely critical of philosophers (especially the early philosophers) and shows a great deal of bias and disdain for any line of thinking that isn't up to par with his ideas of truly objective science (whether his ideas are correct or not). It is because of these two main criticisms that the value of this book gets knocked down a notch.

The meat of this book lies with the foundation of psychology as a science (during the Wundt and James days) up to about the cognitive revolution. What comes before - although informative - is peppered too often with Hunt's bias (i.e. his views on the philosophers), while what comes after is often dry and acts mainly as a summary of current psychological research, thought and news. The problem is that a shift occurs in this book as it transitions to the cognitive revolution. The book mostly starts as an examination of important figures in psychology and the ideas that they brought to the table, but once the cognitive revolution rolls around, this focus shifts to the sub-disciplines and theories of psychology with important people merely serving as narrators for the subject matter. It is a jarring shift that often leaves you wondering how many pages you have left before you can put the book down.

Even with that said, anyone interested in the history of psychology should pick this book up. Despite the complaints, it is usually thorough and tries to maintain an entertaining narrative. You just need to keep an open mind and realize that you are seeing psychology through Morton Hunt's own filter and not necessarily from an objective perspective.