Abstract

ATTACHMENT & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 2021, VOL. 23, NO. 4, 351–354 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2021.1918446 EDITORIAL This Special Issue of Attachment and Human Development on “Attachment in Retrospect and Prospect” has grown out of the recent publication of the book Cornerstones of Attachment Research (2020; hereafter referred to as “Cornerstones”) by the Cambridge historian of science, Robbie Duschinsky. This volume marks an important milestone for the field of attachment. Cornerstones examines and evaluates the contribution of five key research groups that have set the scene for attachment research today, 75 years after theory and research in the field can be said to have formally begun (Bowlby, 1944). Duschinsky argues in Cornerstones that there has been an inevitable “changing of the guard” (p. 555) in the leadership of attachment research; the book calls for reflection and discussion, a taking stock of how far we have come, and where we ought to go from here? These questions must be engaged with by a diverse group of attachment scholars, established and emerging, the chief assumption underpinning this special issue of Attachment and Human Development. This Special Issue consists of two target papers and seven commentaries directed at the target papers and/or Cornerstones. The first target paper