Author: Dean Keith Simonton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Paperback:
ISBN 10: 0965005267
ISBN 13: 978-0965005265
"Civilizations are often defined by the lives and works of their creative geniuses. The glory that was ancient Greece was built on the achievement of Homer, Pythagoras, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Hippocrates, Phidias, and hundreds of other great creators. Modern European civilization was illiuminated by the likes of Galileo, Descartes, Tolstoy, Rembrandt, and Mozart. The same story may be told of the world's other civilizations. The histories of Persia, India, China, and other high cultures are to a very large extent chronologically arranged biographies of notable creative minds. As Thomas Carlyle proclaimed in his famous 1841 essay On Heroes, 'Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.' Among those he discussed at length as illustrations were Dante and Shakespeare, two of the greatest writers in any language. So obvious is the debt civilizations owe these exceptional individuals that the appearance of such geniuses is often considered an indication of the creative health of a civilized culture. For example, this linking is evident in the 1944 Configurations of Culture Growth by Alfred Kroeber, an eminent cultural anthropologist. Wishing to gauge the emergence, growth, and stagnation of civilizations throughout the world, Kroeber could conceive of no better method than to assess the appearance of famous creators across a culture's history. A civilization enjoyed a golden age when it overflowed with first-rate creative minds, experienced a silver age when the creative activity descended to a less notable level, and suffered a dark age when creators became few and far between. Indeed, this association goes beyond the abstract operational definitions of behavioral scientists. What nation does not take pride when one of its writers or scientists is awarded the Nobel Prize?"
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Paperback:
ISBN 10: 0965005267
ISBN 13: 978-0965005265
"Civilizations are often defined by the lives and works of their creative geniuses. The glory that was ancient Greece was built on the achievement of Homer, Pythagoras, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Hippocrates, Phidias, and hundreds of other great creators. Modern European civilization was illiuminated by the likes of Galileo, Descartes, Tolstoy, Rembrandt, and Mozart. The same story may be told of the world's other civilizations. The histories of Persia, India, China, and other high cultures are to a very large extent chronologically arranged biographies of notable creative minds. As Thomas Carlyle proclaimed in his famous 1841 essay On Heroes, 'Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.' Among those he discussed at length as illustrations were Dante and Shakespeare, two of the greatest writers in any language. So obvious is the debt civilizations owe these exceptional individuals that the appearance of such geniuses is often considered an indication of the creative health of a civilized culture. For example, this linking is evident in the 1944 Configurations of Culture Growth by Alfred Kroeber, an eminent cultural anthropologist. Wishing to gauge the emergence, growth, and stagnation of civilizations throughout the world, Kroeber could conceive of no better method than to assess the appearance of famous creators across a culture's history. A civilization enjoyed a golden age when it overflowed with first-rate creative minds, experienced a silver age when the creative activity descended to a less notable level, and suffered a dark age when creators became few and far between. Indeed, this association goes beyond the abstract operational definitions of behavioral scientists. What nation does not take pride when one of its writers or scientists is awarded the Nobel Prize?"