A History of Psychology: The Emergence of Science and Applications traces the history of psychology from antiquity through the early 21st century, giving students a thorough look into psychology's origins and key developments in basic and applied psychology. It presents internal, disciplinary history as well as external contextual history, emphasizing the interactions between psychological ideas and the larger cultural and historical contexts in which psychologists and other thinkers conduct research, teach, and live. It also has a strong scholarly foundation and more than 400 new references.

The new edition retains and expands the strengths of previous editions and introduces several important changes. The text features more women, people of color, and others who are historically marginalized as well as new sections about early Black psychology and barriers faced by people who are diverse. It also includes expanded discussions of eugenics and racism in early psychology. There is new content on the history of the biological basis of psychology, the emergence of qualitative methods, and ecopsychology, ecotherapy, and environmental psychology. Recent historical findings about social psychology, including new historical findings about the Stanford Prison Experiment, Milgram's obedience research, and Sherif's conformity studies have also been incorporated.

Continuing the tradition of past editions, the text focuses on engaging students and on inspiring them to recognize the power of history in their own lives, to connect history to the present and the future, and to think critically and historically.