Profiles of Power & Success: Fourteen Geniuses Who Broke the Rules [Hardcover]

Gene N. Landrum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1996

How do creativity and entrepreneurial genius emerge? Are they acquired or inherited? According to this book, nurture, not nature, is at the root of all great success in life, and the world's great power brokers and creative geniuses are bred, not born. This high-powered volume shows that energised creative geniuses are self-motivated and driven individuals who learned how to be great. Written with the self-help audience in mind, this book will motivate all who dare to reach for success and power in their own lives. Landrum's examples of the highly talented concentrate on six distinctive outlets to realise individual creative potential: Artistic Power - Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso; Business Power - Helena Rubinstein and Rupert Murdoch; Entertainment Power - Isadora Duncan, Walt Disney, and Edith Piaf; Humanistic Power - Marquise de Sade, Maria Montessori, and Amelia Earhart; Political Power - Napoleon and Adolf Hitler; and, Technical Power - Nikola Tesla and Howard Hughes.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 412 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573920525
• ISBN-13: 978-1573920520
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,432,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Immensely entertaining as well as informative, August 13, 2004

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Profiles of Power & Success: Fourteen Geniuses Who Broke the Rules (Hardcover)

This is another in a series of "Profiles of...." volumes in each of which Landrum focuses on exceptional men and women who have achieved great success after having overcome all manner of barriers, obstacles, and adversities. I was especially interested in this book because of the diversity of the 14 subjects examined: Napoleon Bonaparte, Walt Disney, Isadora Duncan, Amelia Earhart, Adolph Hitler, Howard Hughes, Maria Montessori, Rupert Murdoch, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso, Helena Rubenstein, Marquis de Sade, Nikola Tesla (more about him in a moment), and Frank Lloyd Wright. Let's pretend. What if you were asked to compile a list of those to be invited to a private dinner and you came up with these 14. Let's assume that there would be no language barriers and each was in her or his prime. What a lively evening that would be! Hopefully all of the guests would survive it.

With regard to Tesla (1856-1943), frankly I knew nothing about him until reading this book. According to Landrum, Tesla was "arguably the greatest inventive genius who ever lived. Some called him mad, others a genius, but everyone agreed that he was an enigmatic superman." His achievements include AC induction motors, first wireless (radio) transmission, fluorescent lights, solar engine, Tesla coil, VTOL, and concepts which led to the electron microscope, cosmic rays, guided missiles, and radar. He also predicted (in 1915) the inevitability of television and space satellites, with one of countless benefits being television reception via satellite. Given Tesla's obsessive-compulsive and megalomaniac behavior, he was presumably not always a pleasant fellow to be associated with but none can deny his importance in so many fields of scientific inquiry.

This is a thoroughly entertaining as well as an immensely informative book. Landrum devotes a separate chapter to each of "the fourteen geniuses who broke the rules." I especially appreciate his inclusion of 25 "Figures" which range from "Manic Achievers and Power Brokers" to "Twelve Principles of Instilling Creativity in Children." Great stuff.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Landrum's Profiles of Genius, Profiles of Female Genius, and Entrepreneurial Genius as well as Howard Gardner's Leading Minds: An Anatomy Of Leadership and Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Title should be, "Profiles of the Powerful and Self Destructive", November 13, 2010

By 

J. Johnson "Reader" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Profiles of Power & Success: Fourteen Geniuses Who Broke the Rules (Hardcover)

Today, about half way through this book I closed the cover and put the book away. I purchased the book to read about qualities of successful people - interested in role models.

Along with successful qualities, the overreaching message I am getting from this author is the qualities that made the person successful also contributed to the persons self destruction. It is as if the author hand selected people who he could destruct once he wrote about their positive qualities.

If you are looking for a book that talks of people who are positive role models then look elsewhere. This book is depressing, grotesque at points, gives too much information about the negative of these folks - I'm not sure what the authors definition of success is - self destruction is not in my definition of success AND I am certain there are successful people who do not self destruct and destroy themselves.

It is rare I don't finish a book. This one was sickening.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good read but..., June 23, 2000

By 

Edward D. Miller (Saratoga, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Profiles of Power & Success: Fourteen Geniuses Who Broke the Rules (Hardcover)

Good read but not necessarily accurate. Nikola Tesla was ripped off by Edison after Tesla created the AC system of power distribution. This contradicts the title and purpose of the book. Better titled "Profiles of Brilliance". Overall though a facinating book with insight into some very smart people.