Greatness: Who Makes History and Why

Table of Contents 1 Prologue: The Psychologist Confronts Greatness 1 2 Birthrights and Birthmarks: Psychobiological Explanations 9 3 Acts, Affects, and Thoughts: Learning-Based and Cognitive Theories 50 4 The Creative Quest 84 5 The Drive to Succeed 123 6 Infants, Children, and Teenagers: The Famous in Their Youth 142 7 Life's Prime and Death's Advance: A Life-Span Perspective 180 8 The Importance of Intelligence 216 9 The Importance of Personality 247 10 The Significance of Psychopathology 284 11 Violence as a Shaper of History 312 12 The Influence of Attitudes and Beliefs 339 13 Imitation, Affiliation, Group Dynamics, and Leadership 375 14 Epilogue: Has the Psychologist Succeeded? 413 Notes 423 References 445 Subject Index 491

This book is highly-recommended reading for parents. This helps parents realize what it takes to be a genius. The wide array of topics, fields covered is nothing short of amazing. It is certain Dr.Simonton did lot of research to get this whole thing done. My hero in this whole book is Mathematician: Galois, who did some very important work on Algebra the night before his death-duel. I felt the author should have eloborated his life more. Galois is real inspiration for me. I have to say I am very touched by some of the contents in the book. Especially, the eccentricities of Cavendish. Ofcourse, who can forget the funny story about the circumstances under Einstein got Ph.D From U Of Zurich. Most importantly, I got excellant education in world history for few dollars. Now, I made it a point to read all of his books. Thanks for reading ---Radhe

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!

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.

...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.