Genius: A Very Short Introduction

ISBN-13: 9780199594405 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 152 str.

Camb Andrew (Currently a Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College

Opis

Genius is the name we give to a quality of work that transcends fashion, celebrity, fame, and reputation. Somehow, genius abolishes both the time and the place of its origin. Shakespeare's plays and Mozart's melodies and harmonies continue to move people in languages and cultures far removed from their native England and Austria. Similarly, Darwin's ideas are still required reading for every working biologist; they continue to generate fresh thinking and experiments around the world. The first concise study of genius in both the arts and the sciences, this Very Short Introduction uses the life and work of familiar geniuses--including Homer, Leonardo, Tolstoy, Marie Curie, Galileo, and Newton--to illuminate both the individual and the general aspects of genius. In particular, Robinson explores the roles of talent, heredity, parenting, education, training, hard work, intelligence, personality, mental illness, inspiration, eureka moments, and luck, in the making of genius.

Spis treści

From the contents:

1: Defining genius
2: Not running in the family
3: The schooling of genius
4: Intelligence versus genius
5: Genius and madness
6: Chameleon personalities
7: Art versus sciences
8: Eureka experiences
9: Perspiration and inspiration
10: Genius and us

O autorze

Andrew Robinson is the author of some twenty books covering both the arts and the sciences, which have been acclaimed by both national newspapers and specialist journals. They include Sudden Genius? The Gradual Path to Creative Breakthroughs, a biographical study of genius, and five biographies of exceptionally creative individuals in a wide range of fields: the physicist Albert Einstein (A Hundred Years of Relativity, 2005), the film director Satyajit Ray (The Inner Eye, 1989), the writer Rabindranath Tagore (The Myriad-Minded Man, 1995), the archaeological decipherer Michael Ventris (The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 2002), and the polymath Thomas Young (The Last Man Who Knew Everything, 2006).