Perry's text is the original, definitive expression of William James' philosophy, outside of the writings of James -- a founder father of the philosophical genre of pragmatism, contemporary American social thought and modern psychology -- himself. Despite the multitude of books written on and about James and his ideas since, no serious student of William James should be without or ignore this one. It is the Genesis-text, as it were, of Jamesean studies.

Perry organizes and effectively analyzes the whole array of James' diverse writings (including reprints of some tremendous and now otherwise difficult to find selections), enabling any reader to obtain a comprehensive and detailed understanding of James' philosophy. At the same time, Perry infects his analysis with a solid and enduring illustration of James's personality, without ever becoming either trite or merely philosophical biography.

Perry's own skills as a writer are evident in such passages as the following, which is a most memorable description of the breadth and depth of Jame's character: "[James] called himself empiricist, pluralist, pragmatist, individualist, but whenever he did so he began at once to hanker after the fleshpots of rationalism, monism, intellectualism, socialist. He liked body in his philosophizing, and he hated to leave out anything that had either flavor or nutritive value. He was much more afraid of thinness than he was of inconsistency."

In one or two places, the serious James scholar might have a difference of opinion with Perry's analysis, whether historical or philosophical, but all philosophy texts are susceptible to such criticism, and Perry's is less susceptible than most. Indeed, it will be by treating Perry's text as a sound starting place that the inexperienced or unfamiliar reader might become such an adept analyst and capable of interpreting James' life, character and thought so well.