Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People (Paperback)

~ (Author), Michele M. Root-Bernstein (Author), Robert Root-Bernstein (Author), Michele Root-Bernstein (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Operating on the arguable assumption that creative thinking is essentially pre-verbal, intuitive and emotional, the Root-Bernsteins (Honey, Mud, Maggots, and Other Medical Marvels) outline 13 "tools" that help translate spontaneous imaginative experiences into specific media, such as painting, music, scientific experiments and poetry. Among the techniques they identify and describe are "imaging," "abstracting," "body thinking" and "empathizing." Although there is considerable overlap between categories (for example, in the sections on "analogizing" and on "recognizing patterns"), the Root-Bernsteins succeed in defining each category's uniqueness. Freely acknowledging that they are not asserting anything startlingly novel, the authors present an impressive number of firsthand accounts of the creative process, from Albert Einstein and Merce Cunningham to Oliver Sacks and Charles Ives. Some may have trouble accepting the premise that all creative thinking--whether for poetic composition or scientific experiment, and regardless of the thinker's native culture or language--is "universally" categorizable, but the authors make a strong case for a view that is becoming increasingly popular. They conclude with a list of suggestions for how to transform education from the elementary level up so that it is better suited to our demanding, multidimensional culture. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Are there special thinking strategies that characterize genius? How did the Einsteins, Freuds, Picassos, Galileos, and Mozarts come up with their ideas? The Root-Bernsteins, Robert (physiology professor, Michigan State Univ.) and Mich?le (history and writing teacher), have been studying creativity for more than a decade. Using results from these studies, they have identified the following 13 thinking tools to help us tap into our own personal genius and free our minds to be more creative: observing, imaging, abstracting, recognizing patterns, forming patterns, analogizing, body thinking, empathizing, dimensional thinking, modeling, playing, transforming, and synthesizing. The book is well written and easy to follow, with each chapter containing a thorough discussion of each tool. An outstanding section of "Minds-on-Resources" assists the reader in using the tools. Scholarly and inspiring, this book is highly recommended for psychology and education collections in academic and large public libraries.
-Elizabeth Goeters, Roswell, GA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 401 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (January 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395907713
• ISBN-13: 978-0395907719
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #859,412 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant; Outstanding; Better than 5-star book, May 23, 2000

By	S. A. Felton (southern OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is such a pleasure to write a review of a book of this caliber. I don't have to balance what is good with what is not so good, because "Sparks of Genius" is an excellent, superb book, from start to finish. I would have only one small addition to one of the chapters, which I will mention below.

I think that "Sparks of Genius" is the first book I have ever read on the subject of how to develop genius, but I cannot imagine a better complilation of what it takes to foster and inspire genius and creativity in people. The main reason for this is that the authors base their material on how creative people in the arts, sciences, etc., acquire and develop their skills, and every chapter except the last one (appropriately) are full of firsthand examples from people of genius and creativity in (almost!) all walks of life. Yet the authors themselves exhibit their own kind of genius in organizing the material, writing chapter after chapter with genuine vision and clarity, and most importantly, after intellectually explaining "sparks" such as observing, imaging, analyzing, and empathizing, give specific, generally uncomplicated, exercises on how to develop these skills.

Throughout the book the authors demonstrate that people in very diverse walks of life exhibit the same "sparks of genius" in their work, which I find quite inspiring in itself. In this way they themselves exemplify the value of "synthesis," perhaps the key that links all the methods they depict.

The book is a call to "rethink thinking," to teach cross-discipline learning, and I feel that the methods discussed in the book, and then discussed specifically in the context of education in the final chapter, would be invaluable as educational tools. I believe that if children's education could be fostered along the lines of these tools of creative genius, if children could be taught to use their own internal resources instead of relying on the obvious external garbage such as TV and video games, the improvement to society would be tremendous.

My favorite chapter in the book is called "Empathizing," where the authors discuss what artists and scientists do to go inside of whomever or whatever they are portraying (actors), drawing (artists), treating (physicians), as well as other real-life examples.

My only small addition to "Sparks of Genius" would be in the penultimate chapter, called "Synthesizing," some mention of the "gestalt" in experiencing the whole in music, art, etc. I liked this term from personal experience and from books on gestalt therapy that came out some time ago, and it's a very intuitive concept that fits in well with the chapter's discussion.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Everything in your life ends up in your act." C.Steinmetz, August 1, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

The authors cite the above quote as synthesizing the lessons of this remarkable book. In so doing, they make a compelling case for a reversal of the education and thinking processes of ever more separating the arts and sciences, the senses, and subdividing specialities. As the authors relate in a number of ways, a central problem of education today is that the students often can pass the tests but not apply what they learned to everyday life. This is a core problem also cited by fellow MacArthur scholar Howard Gardner in The Unschooled Mind. They see the compartmentalization of knowledge and learning as the cause.

The path taken to get to that conclusion is a most unique and pleasant one to follow. They investigated the writings of creative geniuses and the reports of contemporaries about them, and found that these people employed many more kinds of thought processes than the average person uses. And each thought process added something to the whole.

In so doing, they correct many descriptions about these same people in popular (and even scholarly) writings. For example, almost everyone knows that Einstein had trouble with math as a young person. Most people believe that he suddenly blossomed as a mathematician later. But that's not the case. He developed his concepts through mind and body experiments that had nothing to do with math. When it came time to create the proofs for his work, he needed help from accomplished mathematicians.

This is another key point: the creative insight that these people have is never as it is presented to the world. That communicated version is simply one that is easier to understand, but has little to do with the way the innovator perceives the concept. As the authors put it, "Creative thinking in all fields occurs proverbally, before logic or linguistics comes into play, manifesting itself through emotions, intuitions, images and bodily feelings. The resulting ideas can be translated into one or more formal systems of communication . . . only after they are sufficiently developed in their prelogical forms."

To make the case for that perspective, the authors take creative thinking in both arts and sciences and look at the process as one to find commonalities. In so doing, they observe 13 frequently used methods by creative geniuses: observing; imaging; abstracting; recognizing patterns; analogizing; body thinking; empathizing; dimensional thinking; modeling; playing; transforming; and synthesizing.

With many books, you can read a list like that and skip the book. That would be a mistake here. Each of these 13 chapters was a revelation to me with how much can be done in each area. Drawing from a number of fields and individuals, the authors describe advanced uses of these techniques in ways beyond what I could have imagined.

Having heard the concept for the first time in a particular application, I could usually begin to apply it to my own issues. In other words, this book was teaching me to think at a fundamental level that I had never understood before! Then, each chapter has examples and exercises to stimulate you further. Being a messy sort of person, I liked the ones about playing in the mud and keeping old samples around quite a lot.

Also, in each chapter you will find statistics on the prevalence of the methods in ordinary use. Some are virtually universal (such as observing) while others are quite unusual in adults (like advanced forms of synthesizing). Yet almost all of these are quite common in children and in key cultural events (like the Japanese tea ceremony). That seems to imply that education is partly the process of unlearning some important creative skills.

I had personally always been fascinated by Einstein's mind game of imagining that he was riding on a photon of light, carrying a flashlight, and wondering what would happen when he pointed it at another photon traveling next to him. Would it flow back or what? Now that I have read this book, I am enriched by 200 more such examples of creative thinking. This is a book I will treasure forever.

But before you retire into a round of ever greater stimulation and creativity, take a moment and share this book with an educator. This message is of critical importance for the future. Creative geniuses are succeeding almost solely by trusting their instincts. We can do much more to nurture creativity by sharing and applying these lessons to all learning environments. In so doing, we can extend the current best practice to a much more effective level, and accelerate the process of unraveling the important lessons still to be learned.

Abolish your disbelief about the untapped creative potential of all people with this book!

Enjoy!

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein's Sparks of Genius, September 7, 2000

By	Osher Doctorow, Ph.D. (Culver City, CA United States) - See all my reviews

The review by Kirkus Associates is excellent, and many of the other reviews are very good. The 13 thinking tools of the world's most creative people, according to the authors, are abstracting, analogizing, body thinking (body images), dimensional thinking, empathizing (feeling empathy with objects, processes, others), forming patterns, imaging (thinking of things by using mental images of them, whether realistic or "distorted"), modeling, observing, playing, recognizing patterns, synthesizing (combining, etc.), transforming. The study of genius as an "extreme" of knowledge discovery is long past its due in education from elementary through university, and has many clues for improving education. Geniuses not only cross fields from science through art, but tend to be interdisciplinary, appear to be well grounded both in basics and intuition/thinking/mental processes, and use imagery (by the way, using imagery is taught by a number of cognitive psychologists and psychoanalysts for mental health as well). Robert Bernstein's physiology background helps him unlock some of the physiological processes of genius, and Michele's historical background helps trace back the characteristics of pre-modern geniuses. There is probably much more to the story, but this book is an excellent start.