Reviews

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

Only show reviews with written explanations

russellcw's review

Go to review page

informative medium-paced

4.5

krispet's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.75

My star rating reflects the quality of writing and gives credit to the hundreds of hours of Isaacson's time devoted to developing this thoroughly engaging title. As for my feelings on Musk, they are captured perfectly in the following extract:

"Do the audaciousness and hubris that drive him to attempt epic feats excuse his bad behaviour, his callousness, his recklessness? The times he's an asshole? The answer is no, of course not. One can admire a person's good traits and decry the bad ones. But it's also important to understand how the strands are woven together, sometimes tightly. It can be hard to remove the dark ones without unravelling the whole cloth. As Shakespeare teaches us, all heroes have flaws, some tragic, some conquered, and those we cast as villains can be complex. Even the best people, he wrote, are moulded out of faults."