Customer Reviews

Creative People at Work: Twelve Cognitive Case Studies

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Interesting approach and worth the price, if you're serious. The editors have invited, or collected, analysis and/or interpretation from a variety of writers so that each of the individuals discussed in the book is seen from the perspective of a different "theory"--if you will--of creativity. As a reader, therefore, one has an overview of approaches to creativity. What sets this book apart is the opening text, written by the editors, about creativity and how the boundaries broken by creators differ according to the time in which the creator lived. They also maintain a respect for the mystery of creativity, and have interesting commentary on the successes and failures of different approaches that have been made in understanding it.

I've read seriously about creativity and genius for the past 15 years; this is a book for the serious reader, which is a relief given the onslaught of books promising to make the reader "more creative" or books that fail to present creativity as a kind of dialogue among wild freedom, cool assessment, knowledge of and skill in one's field, and the metaphoric willingness to jump off a cliff and sometimes fail in spectacular ways and other times taking off.