The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist.

The monstrous artist. The tech disruptor.

You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared totolerate.

Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Floridian rocket launches of Elon Musk s SpaceX, Helen Lewis unravels a word that we all use without really questioning what it means.

Along the way, she uncovers the secret of the Beatles success, asks how biographers should solve the Austen Problem, and reveals why Stephen Hawking thought IQ tests were for losers (before taking one herself).

And she asks if the modern idea of genius a class of special people is distorting our view of the world.

Format: Oversize Paperback
Published: 2025
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Pages: 327
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1787333256
ISBN 13: 9781787333253