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safairamariah's review
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
I am very aware of how difficult it is to write a book like this. Intelligence is not even universally defined, let alone genius. There is also no general consensus among the nature vs nature debate regarding intelligence. So this book is quite a feat.
The author was very critical of associations made with genius, like creativity and solitude, which was really nice. It was surprising to me that the only trait that really correlated seemed to be solitude, which even had exceptions if I remember correctly.
I do think that there should have been a more critical look at the originality of genius work. Halfway into this book I saw no mention of Nikola Tesla f.e., whose ideas were allegedly stolen by Edison. Then, on the last pages, I see Edison's photo and a quote of him.....I also had that with Einstein whose ex-wife, Mileva Maric, allegedly influenced or created parts of his work on physics. Same thing with Darwin, who allegedly stole his theory of natural selection. The author mention that Darwin was not the first discoverer of natural selection, but where, again, remains an analysis of Alfred Russel Wallace? Instead of just having talked about traits associated with genius, I missed a chapter on genius and originality. Instead, I did get a small gist of that: the author did mention that in science genius breakthroughs are group efforts. I know that some of the people I listed, except Edison, might have actually been the original creators of their works (since I also said allegedly)!
However, a chapter on this would have been nice. I am also aware the author might have not been able to do this since A very short introduction books are concise.
All in all it was a nice read and it certainly left me with questions, which is a good thing.
The author was very critical of associations made with genius, like creativity and solitude, which was really nice. It was surprising to me that the only trait that really correlated seemed to be solitude, which even had exceptions if I remember correctly.
I do think that there should have been a more critical look at the originality of genius work. Halfway into this book I saw no mention of Nikola Tesla f.e., whose ideas were allegedly stolen by Edison. Then, on the last pages, I see Edison's photo and a quote of him.....I also had that with Einstein whose ex-wife, Mileva Maric, allegedly influenced or created parts of his work on physics. Same thing with Darwin, who allegedly stole his theory of natural selection. The author mention that Darwin was not the first discoverer of natural selection, but where, again, remains an analysis of Alfred Russel Wallace? Instead of just having talked about traits associated with genius, I missed a chapter on genius and originality. Instead, I did get a small gist of that: the author did mention that in science genius breakthroughs are group efforts. I know that some of the people I listed, except Edison, might have actually been the original creators of their works (since I also said allegedly)!
However, a chapter on this would have been nice. I am also aware the author might have not been able to do this since A very short introduction books are concise.
All in all it was a nice read and it certainly left me with questions, which is a good thing.
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