Nominator's statement

http://www.yorku.ca/dept/psych/classics/James/Principles/index.htm

comments

• James set the standard for combining introspection with empirical scientific observation of mental processes, and raised the bar for the integration of biology, philosophy, and spirituality into what has come down to us as psychology and cognitive science. The scope of the topics that he covered made way for the instituitionally, interdisciplinary field of cognitive science as we know it. We should be embarassed that we as participants in this discipline, that he foreshadowed, fail to engage his work over 100 years after he began it.

• This book set the groundwork for the past 100 years of psychological theory development.

• Okay, this (multivolume) book was published in 1890, but I'd still count it as one of the most influential books of the 20th century. Every psychologist has (or should) read it and it really has *everything* in it, from connectionism to psychology of religion. Maybe *the* most influential book on the entire list.