Greatness: Who Makes History and Why

Rating:
Summary: Everything you ever wanted to know about...
Review: ...GREATNESS ofcourse. The back cover (of the edition I read) contains a comment which alludes to this being a "ground-breaking" work. With all due respect I don't think it is. Simonton obviously knows his stuff and anyone reading this book will benefit from his extensive knowledge on topics from ancient philosophy to modern substance abuse. What the book does provide is an expansive overview of the subject (greatness/psychology) and the first half of the book I could not put down. After a while however one tires of reading about American presidents ad nauseaum and realizes that although Simonton presents a lot of supporting evidence and draws much on source materials he lacks direction and pulls his punches. His value judgments and observations although not obtrusive sometimes lack the insight to be truly "great". The conclusion is particularly lack-lustre. I admire what Simonton has done and written and admit to having learnt much from this book. To the general reader it does offer a good background knowledge of psychology (more so than history) but in the end lacks any profundity. Perhaps this is not the fault of Simonton at all, the subject matter precludes hard and fast conclusions. This book is worth a read and can at times be very inspiring, it's not however the final word yet.

Rating:
Summary: Everything you ever wanted to know about...
Review: ...GREATNESS ofcourse. The back cover (of the edition I read) contains a comment which alludes to this being a "ground-breaking" work. With all due respect I don't think it is. Simonton obviously knows his stuff and anyone reading this book will benefit from his extensive knowledge on topics from ancient philosophy to modern substance abuse. What the book does provide is an expansive overview of the subject (greatness/psychology) and the first half of the book I could not put down. After a while however one tires of reading about American presidents ad nauseaum and realizes that although Simonton presents a lot of supporting evidence and draws much on source materials he lacks direction and pulls his punches. His value judgments and observations although not obtrusive sometimes lack the insight to be truly "great". The conclusion is particularly lack-lustre. I admire what Simonton has done and written and admit to having learnt much from this book. To the general reader it does offer a good background knowledge of psychology (more so than history) but in the end lacks any profundity. Perhaps this is not the fault of Simonton at all, the subject matter precludes hard and fast conclusions. This book is worth a read and can at times be very inspiring, it's not however the final word yet.

Rating:
Summary: simply great!
Review: I must say that this is one of the best psychology textbooks that I own. While most of them sit on a shelf, only to be picked up occasionally for reference, Dr. Simonton's book is one that I've read a number of times... and I'm not even a psychologist.

It is written in a style that is both entertaining and informative and the progression of topics is perfect. The book satisfies the universal interest we have in those who are great, those who can be and those who could have been.

I am most impressed with the statistics and tables that he presents. Even if you like to just "look at the pictures," they still convey the most interesting things.

It has provided me with hours of conversation which is a definitive way to judge a non-fiction book. The best ones are those that you think and talk about.

Rating:
Summary: simply great!
Review: I must say that this is one of the best psychology textbooks that I own. While most of them sit on a shelf, only to be picked up occasionally for reference, Dr. Simonton's book is one that I've read a number of times... and I'm not even a psychologist.

It is written in a style that is both entertaining and informative and the progression of topics is perfect. The book satisfies the universal interest we have in those who are great, those who can be and those who could have been.

I am most impressed with the statistics and tables that he presents. Even if you like to just "look at the pictures," they still convey the most interesting things.

It has provided me with hours of conversation which is a definitive way to judge a non-fiction book. The best ones are those that you think and talk about.

Rating:
Summary: An in-depth look at what makes some people Great
Review: Simonton's book is bound to overwhelm you. There is so much information packed into this tome that I found myself jumping from chapter to chapter. But a lot of this is fascinating. If you want to know about the correlation between intelligence and productivity or birth order and greatness, you can find it here. There is a treasury of great anecdotes about great people (my favorite is Brahms's comment about treading in the footsteps of a giant--Beethoven), and the book is a fast read (page-by-page that is--it's quite a lengthy book).

The drawback of the work is that it may lead you to think that we can really know what greatness is. Simonton has done his research and offers many arguments along these lines, but I couldn't help feeling at the end of it, that though I had a better understanding of different aspects of greatness--intelligence, productivity, charisma etc.--it wasn't entirely clear how they fit together in the form of an individual. There is still no sure way (and there will probably never be) of knowing beforehand whether someone will be great. Greatness cannot be made with any amount of certainty, even if we have all the ingredients (which we don't). Luck and contingency play too large a role.

Nevertheless this is a fun read and you can learn a lot!