Beginning to End or Life-Span Development

Reviews the books, Lifespan Human Development, 2nd ed by Sueann Robinson Ambron and David Brodzinsky (1982) and Life-Span Human Development by Dorothy Rogers (1982). Postadolescence through death is the wave of the future in developmental psychology textbooks. These volumes are even more ambitious; they begin with the beginning. The comprehensiveness of these two books extends beyond the human life span. It approaches all the social and biological sciences that impinge on human existence. Each book takes the reader through the laborious trek from the joining of two cells to death-even through death and mourning. Each book uses a chronological approach and describes the milieu in which the individual passes from infancy to childhood, childhood to adolescence, adolescence to adulthood, and so on. The very comprehensiveness of these volumes is one of their shortcomings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)