The Wiley Handbook of Genius

Preface

Genius is certainly not an esoteric or obscure topic. Its broad interest can be easily demonstrated using the now-standard “Google test.” Just google the word and see how many websites pop up. The last time I did so, about 330,000,000 sites emerged. To be sure, few of these can be considered scientific treatments of the subject. On the contrary, the term is often used for its marketing potential. One of my favorite T-shirts reads “Guinness, Gaelic for Genius.” Hence, a better reflection of its status might be obtained using Google Scholar, in which case we get about 1,040,000 results – a still impressive figure. It is also gratifying to find a few of my own contributions to the subject show up in the output. After all, I have been studying genius ever since I started working on my doctoral dissertation over 40 years ago! Admittedly, I did not use “genius” in the title of every publication that emerged since then. Because genius assumes many different forms, it is often possible to use a more specific term as the subject of research – like greatness, eminence, achievement, creativity, talent, or leadership. Indeed, over the past four decades, I have studied the phenomenon as it appears in science and technology, philosophy, painting and sculpture, poetry and drama, music, opera, cinema, politics, and even war – from scientific to military genius and (almost) everything between.

Among the works listed on the initial page of the Google Scholar output is the first classic ...