The Genius Myth
The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist. The monstrous artist. The tech disruptor.
You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate.
Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Floridian rocket launches of Elon Musk's SpaceX, Helen Lewis unravels a word that we all use - without really questioning what it means.
Along the way, she uncovers the secret of the Beatles' success, asks how biographers should solve the Austen Problem, and reveals why Stephen Hawking thought IQ tests were for losers (before taking one herself). And she asks if the modern idea of genius - a class of special people - is distorting our view of the world.
Helen Lewis
Helen Lewis is a British journalist who works as a Staff Writer at the Atlantic Magazine. She is a regular on the Private Eye podcast, Page 94, and is the co-host of Strong Message Here with Armando Iannucci on BBC Radio 4.
Her history of Feminism, 'Difficult Women' was a Sunday Times bestseller.
