  I describe early work on strongly correlated electron systems [SCES] from the
perspective of a theoretical physicist who, while a participant in their
reductionist top- down beginnings, is now part of the paradigm change to a
bottom-up "emergent" approach with its focus on using phenomenology to find the
organizing principles responsible for their emergent behavior disclosed by
experiment---and only then constructing microscopic models that incorporate
these. After considering the organizing principles responsible for the
emergence of plasmons, quasiparticles, and conventional superconductivity in
SCES, I consider their application to three of SCES's sister systems, the
helium liquids, nuclei, and the nuclear matter found in neutron stars. I note
some recent applications of the random phase approximation and examine briefly
the role that paradigm change is playing in two central problems in our field:
understanding the emergence and subsequent behavior of heavy electrons in Kondo
lattice materials; and finding the mechanism for the unconventional
superconductivity found in heavy electron, organic, cuprate, and iron-based
materials.
