Synopses & Reviews
Creativity isn't born, it's cultivated—this innovative guide distills the work of extraordinary artists and thinkers to show you how.
All the imagination needs to be fruitful is exercise. Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein identify the thinking tools employed by history's greatest creative minds—from Albert Einstein and Jane Goodall to Amadeus Mozart and Virginia Woolf—so that anyone with the right mix of inspiration and drive can set their own genius in motion. With engaging narratives and ample illustrations, Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein investigate cognitive tools as diverse as observing, imaging, recognizing patterns, modeling, playing, and more to provide "a clever, detailed and demanding fitness program for the creative mind" (Kirkus Reviews).
Review
-- Desmond Morris, zoologist, artist, and author of The Naked Ape
Review
"Every child is a diamond of potential genius. The Root-Bernsteins offer a looking glass for reflecting and polishing all the facets of brilliance." -- Michael J. Gelb, author of How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci
Review
"A fascinating study of creative thinking -- mankind's greatest attribute."
Synopsis
Exercise your imagination and set off sparks of genius. In this mind-expanding book, Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein describe the "thinking tools" of extraordinary people, from Albert Einstein and Jane Goodall to Amadeus Mozart and Virginia Woolf, and show how you can practice the same imaginative skills to be your most inventive, at any time in your life. With its lavish illustrations and novel exploration of tools as diverse as playing, observing, recognizing patterns, imaging, modeling, and more, Sparks of Genius is a groundbreaking guidebook for everyone interested in creative thinking, lifelong learning, and interdisciplinary education.
Synopsis
Exercise your imagination and set off sparks of genius. Explore the "thinking tools" of extraordinary people, from Albert Einstein and Jane Goodall to Amadeus Mozart and Virginia Woolf, and learn how you can practice the same imaginative skills to become your creative best. With engaging narratives and ample illustrations, Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein investigate cognitive tools as diverse as observing, imaging, recognizing patterns, modeling, playing, and more. SPARKS OF GENIUS is "a clever, detailed and demanding fitness program for the creative mind" (Kirkus Reviews) and a groundbreaking guidebook for anyone interested in imaginative thinking, lifelong learning, and transdisciplinary education.
About the Author
Robert Root-Bernstien is an associate professor of physiology at Michigan State University. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and is the author of Rethinking AIDS and Discovering. Bernstien currently lives in East Lansing, Michigan.Michele Root-Berstein is the author of Boulevard Theater and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Paris, which won the Sierra Best Book Award from the Western Association of Women Historians. She currrently resides in East Lansing, Michigan.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xi
1. Rethinking Thinking 1
2. Schooling the Imagination 14
3. Observing 30
4. Imaging 50
5. Abstracting 70
6. Recognizing Patterns 92
7. Forming Patterns 115
8. Analogizing 136
9. Body Thinking 160
10. Empathizing 182
11. Dimensional Thinking 202
12. Modeling 226
13. Playing 246
14. Transforming 269
15. Synthesizing 296
16. Synthesizing Education 316
Notes 331
Biography 246
Minds-on Resources 365
Illustration Credits 374
Index 378