Greatness: Who Makes History and Why

New
Paperback
1994
$64.05

This path-breaking work offers the first comprehensive examination of the important personalities and events that have influenced the course of history. It discusses whether people who go down in history are different from the rest of us and whether specific personality traits predispose certain people to become world leaders, movie stars, scientific geniuses, and athletes. It sheds light on the depth of potential in everyone, yielding important clues as to how we can take advantage of our own individual personality traits. Probing the lives of a range of important figures, the book explores the full range of phenomena associated with greatness, scrutinizing the significance of everything from genetic inheritance, intuition, aesthetic appreciation, and birth order, to formal education, sexual orientation, aging, IQ, and alcohol and drug abuse. This book will be of interest to anyone interested in the people and events that have helped shape the world, including mental health professionals and scholars studying psychological topics in the larger context of science, art, politics, and history. The book also serves as an engaging text for undergraduate psychology courses.

Synopsis

This path-breaking work offers the first comprehensive examination of the important personalities and events that have influenced the course of history. It discusses whether people who go down in history are different from the rest of us and whether specific personality traits predispose certain people to become world leaders, movie stars, scientific geniuses, and athletes. It sheds light on the depth of potential in everyone, yielding important clues as to how we can take advantage of our own individual personality traits. Probing the lives of a range of important figures, the book explores the full range of phenomena associated with greatness, scrutinizing the significance of everything from genetic inheritance, intuition, aesthetic appreciation, and birth order, to formal education, sexual orientation, aging, IQ, and alcohol and drug abuse. This book will be of interest to anyone interested in the people and events that have helped shape the world, including mental health professionals and scholars studying psychological topics in the larger context of science, art, politics, and history. The book also serves as an engaging text for undergraduate psychology courses.

$64.05

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 502
Edition: 1
Publisher: Guilford Press
Published: 07 Jul 1994
ISBN 10: 0898622018
ISBN 13: 9780898622010

Media Reviews

Only a great book could do justice to greatness throughout the ages, and Simonton has produced one....a valuable resource for professionals and engaging reading for lay audiences....the book also provides an unexpected view of the history of psychology. -- READINGS: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health
In this very readable book, widely published psychologist Simonton attempts to determine what factors history-makers share in common and what characterizes them as unique....Simonton makes a lively and convincing case for his ultimate goal, the definition of a distinct subdiscipline of psychology, the psychology of history, or the application of psychological principles to historic phenomena. For psychologists and general readers. -- CHOICE

This is a book that might be used as a text or as a reference but here's the great part: It can be read for enjoyment!...Simonton has created a monument to completeness and complexity, but it is highly readable. The book is replete with fascinating tables, lists, and charts about individuals deemed as great who share a common characteristic....The book is very well written, full of examples and creative interpretation, persuasive, and up to date. This is a great book about greatness. --Malcolm James Ree in Personnel Psychology

Simonton's book is so comprehensive and so engagingly written that, if major research universities regularly offered courses in the psychology of history, Greatness: Who Makes History and Why would be widely adopted as a text. The book is, in short, a tour de force: spirited, erudite, and entertaining - well within the reach of advanced undergraduates. --Philip E. Tetlock

Fascinating, thorough, varied, readable, good text for students. --Joel Funk, Plymouth State College, New Hampshire

Everything you wanted to know--and more--about the great historical figures who have shaped culture and society, Dean K. Simonton, our most prolific psychologist in the field of creativity studies, has assembled here a treasure-trove of facts and observations that will delight the reader, and serve as a useful reference for many years to come. --Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D., The University of Chicago, author of FLOW: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Dean Simonton's book on Greatness is a tour de force that explores the many aspects of greatness, including intelligence, creativity, leadership, social forces, and more. The book combines Simonton's own pathbreaking analyses of greatness with those of others, providing essential reading for anyone interested in what makes some people stand out from the rest. The book is written in a lucid, engaging style that will interest laypeople as well as professionals in all disciplines who wish to know what makes some people stand out from the rest. --Robert J. Sternberg, Ph.D., Yale University, author of The Nature Of Creativity

Dean Keith Simonton has long been esteemed within the social sciences for his pioneering studies of creativity, leadership, and genius. Now he has produced a fascinating, accessible, and authoritative survey of work in this area. Students and seasoned experts are equally in his debt. --Howard Gardner, Ph.D., Harvard University, Graduate School of Education

Author Bio

Dean Keith Simonton, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis, has published more than 100 articles and five books on various aspects of history-making personalities and events.