history m $29.99 us / $34.50 cAn c a m A D vA n c e P r A i s e f o r A h Genius. With hints of madness and mystery, moral D i v i n e F u ry o n license and visionary force, the word suggests an 7/1 almost otherworldly power: the power to create, A h i s t o ry o f g e n i u s to divine the secrets of the universe, even to destroy. yet 7/1 the notion of genius has been diluted in recent times. today, 7/31 D “Darrin mcmahon has become one of the world’s greatest historians of ideas. his analysis of genius rock stars, football coaches, and entrepreneurs are labeled is eye-opening and original, his insights are deep and fresh, and his prose is sparkling and subtle. “geniuses,”and the word is applied so widely that it has obscured i Prepare to be blown away.” —DAnieL giLBert, edgar Pierce Professor of the sense of special election and superhuman authority that long v Psychology, harvard university, and author of Stumbling on Happiness accompanied it. i As acclaimed historian Darrin m. mcmahon explains, the n D i v i n e concept of genius has roots in antiquity, when men of prodigious “Darrin mcmahon has given us all we could want in an intellectual history of genius in prose that insight were thought to possess—or to be possessed by—demons is a delight to read for its elegance and lucidity.” —Jim hoLt, author of e and gods. Adapted in the centuries that followed and applied a Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story utt to a variety of religious fi gures, including prophets, apostles, r ki sorcerers, and saints, abiding notions of transcendent human c e F B © power were invoked at the time of the renaissance to explain the “What an illuminating book Darrin mcmahon has given us. By tracing the history of a seemingly F u r y u miraculous creativity of men like Leonardo and michelangelo. simple idea—that of the individual genius—he sheds a bright and sometimes disturbing light on how DArrin m. mcmAhon yet it was only in the eighteenth century that the genius is the Ben we think about ourselves and our societies today. Drawing artfully on a wide range of philosophical, r was truly born, idolized as a new model of the highest human Weider Professor of history at Florida state university. the author religious, artistic, and scientifi c material, mcmahon forces us to ask: Why are we so eager to identify type. Assuming prominence in fi gures as varied as newton of Happiness: A History and Enemies of the Enlightenment, he lives in geniuses? What do we expect from them, and why? After reading his compelling story you may y and napoleon, the modern genius emerged in tension with a tallahassee, Florida. never use the term ‘genius’ again.” —mArK LiLLA, author of growing belief in human equality. contesting the notion that all The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West are created equal, geniuses served to dramatize the exception of extraordinary individuals not governed by ordinary laws. the “this elegant and probing book is about much more than genius—it is about why we think of A phenomenon of genius drew scientifi c scrutiny and extensive o ourselves as we do. Demons, saints, angels, poets, physicists, and generals parade through these f h public commentary into the twentieth century, but it also drew g pages, offering the reader an extraordinary series of insights into the modern tension between the i religious and political longings that could be abused. in the e s cult of celebrity and a deepening suspicion of greatness.” —Lynn hunt, author of n genius cult of the nazis and the outpouring of reverence for the t Inventing Human Rights io redemptive fi gure of einstein, genius achieved both its apotheosis u r and its Armageddon. s $29.99 US / $34.50 CAN y the fi rst comprehensive history of this elusive concept, 6.25 x 9.5 ISBN 978-0-465-00325-9 Divine Fury follows the fortunes of genius and geniuses through S: 1-3/16 52999 B: 1 Jacket design by nicole caputo A member of the Perseus Books group the ages down to the present day, showing how—despite its DArrin m. mcmAhon Jacket image © mihaly Zichy, the Demon www.basicbooks.com many permutations and recent democratization—genius remains Basic- HC (victory of genius over destruction), 1878, a potent force in our lives, refl ecting modern needs, hopes, Color: 4C 9 780465 003259 Author of Happiness: A History erich Lessing / Art resource,ny and fears. Finish: gritty w/ title, author name & subtitle in PGS mylar MORE ADVANCE PRAISE FOR DIVINE FURY “As Darrin McMahon shows, the genius is the god among men— providing one of the last connections to the transcendent that our common secular culture retains, and setting up a struggle be- tween our desire for exceptional beings and our leveling egalitari- anism. In its absorbing and remarkable way, Divine Fury educates and entertains, vindicating the importance of grand history told over the long term.” —Samuel Moyn, Columbia University, au- thor of Th e Last Utopia: Human Rights in History “It is rare to fi nd an historian who writes in a style both so sure-footed and so light, and with such joy in the telling of a tale. In his engaging new book Darrin McMahon takes us on an intellectual adventure, tracing the transformation of the idea of genius as it shed its sacred garments to become the common property of our own democratic age. Ranging with ease across history—from the poets of Romanticism to the tyrants of the twentieth-century, from Einstein to the ‘IQ Test,’ and from Benjamin Franklin to the ‘wiz-kid’ inventors of Silicon Valley—McMahon invites us to consider a central paradox of our time: If anyone can be a genius, then perhaps no one is.” —Peter E. Gordon, Amabel B. James Professor of History, Harvard University, and author of Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd AA 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd BB 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM DIVINE FURY 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd ii 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd iiii 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM DIVINE FURY A HISTORY of GENIUS DARRIN M. MCMAHON A Member of the Perseus Books Group New York 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd iiiiii 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM Copyright © 2013 by Darrin M. McMahon Published by Basic Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special. [email protected]. Designed by Cynthia Young Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McMahon, Darrin M. Divine fury : a history of genius / Darrin M. McMahon. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-465-00325-9 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-465-06991-0 (e-book) 1. Gifted persons—History. 2. Gifted persons—Biography. 3. Intellectual life— History. I. Title. BF416.A1M35 2013 153.9'809—dc23 2013016418 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd iivv 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM For Julien and Madeleine, who have given me gifts, born and made. May I off er them many in return. 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd vv 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd vvii 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM The genius of humanity is the right point of view of history. Th e qualities abide; the men who exhibit them have now more, now less, and pass away. . . . Once you saw phoenixes: they are gone; the world is not therefore disenchanted. Th e vessels on which you read sacred emblems turn out to be common pottery; but the sense of the pictures is sacred, and you may still read them transferred to the walls of the world. . . . Once they were angels of knowledge and their fi gures touched the sky. Th en we drew near, saw their means, culture and limits; and they yielded their place to other geniuses. —Emerson, Uses of Great Men, 1850 Among modern civilized beings a reverence for genius has become a substitute for the lost dogmatic religions of the past. —Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum, Th e Problem of Genius, 1931 Now the word “genius,” though in some sense extravagant, nonetheless has a noble, harmonious, and humanely healthy character and ring. . . . And yet it cannot be, nor has it ever been denied that the demonic and irrational have a disquieting share in that radiant sphere, that there is always a faint, sinister connection between it and the nether world, and for that very reason those reassuring epithets I sought to attribute to genius— “noble,” “humanely healthy,” and “harmonious”—do not quite fi t, not even when . . . it is a matter of a pure and authentic genius, bestowed or perhaps infl icted by God. . . . —Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus, 1947 99778800446655000033225599--tteexxtt..iinndddd vviiii 88//1133//1133 11::3355 PPMM