The Essential Vygotsky

Abstract

(from the preface) The Essential Vygotsky is a selection of the writings of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934), taken from the six volumes of The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky that have appeared both in Russian (1982-84) and in English translation (1987-99). The editors have endeavored to choose the most important and most interesting contributions from all types of Vygotsky's writings, and thus from all six volumes, so as to reflect the overall purpose of the program that Vygotsky was developing at the time of his early death. The editors decided to follow the structure of the English version of the Collected Works, which has a different order than that chosen by the Soviet editors. It could easily be argued that the Soviet ordering would be better, or perhaps a chronological or some other order would be ideal. However, our chosen arrangement has the convenience that the serious reader can use The Essential Vygotsky as an introductory textbook and then easily turn to the six volumes of the English language Collected Works for more extensive reading. To give the reader a taste of the resources in the six volumes, we have included the references and notes (by Russian and by English editors) for Section I only. Any citations in the other sections refer to materials in the corresponding volumes of Collected Works. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) (preface)