Something Old, Something New

Abstract

Between 1970 and 1980, Blumenthal and Danziger published a series of works in which they criticized the mythical accounts of Wundt in history text-books. The source of these accounts was E.G. Boring's History of Experimental Psychology (1929/1950). Subsequent generations of textbook writers had merely copied from other textbooks without consulting original sources. Boring's flawed account had become increasingly distorted as it was passed on from one generation to the next. How did the textbook writers of the 1980s respond to this challenge? This work examines some of the changes which were made and the explanations which were given for them.