Handbook of Social Psychology: Edited by Gardner Lindzey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., 1954. Two volumes, 1226 pp.

These two volumes cover the field of social psychology and constitute a veritable encyclopedia. The first volume is devoted to Theory and Method and the second to Special Fields and Applications. It is in effect a source book, more advanced than the ordinary textbook. It constitutes the most authoritative reference book that we possess and covers the rapid expansion of social studies during the last two decades.

In an introductory chapter of uncommon interest Allport sketches the historical background of modern social psychology. Although this science seems to have been born full grown like Minerva, its ancestry, Allport shows, is an ancient one. Its roots lie in the international soil of the whole Western tradition 'and its present flowering is recognized to be characteristically an American phenomenon'. One might add that so much is this so that no other country but this could have produced a book of this magnitude and competence.

The topics treated range from an account of contemporary systematic positions, including Field Theory and Psychoanalytic Theory, to different research methods, down to such practical applications as a study of the psychology of voting. Of more specific interest to the psychoanalyst is a chapter by Flugel, Humor and Laughter, which apart from its intrinsic excellence contains a first-class bibliography of particular usefulness.

It is difficult to believe that this handbook will be superseded for many years to come.