The factors that stimulated me to work on a book that brings together knowledge on temperament in children and adults, that goes beyond geographical isolation,and that reports research based on different paradigms and conceptualizations include the conviction that knowledge on temperament is still not sufficiently integrated,the belief that my over 40 years of research in this domain has led to development of a broad view on a variety of issues related to temperament, and,finally, access to an almost complete temperament literature.