Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Six top recent hidden histories

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Alexandra Silverman tagged six top recent hidden histories, including:
Divine Fury: A History of Genius, by Darrin M. McMahon

If you asked a roomful of people for a definition of genius, you’d probably get plenty of “hmmms…” and “ums,” proffered names of great scientists, athletes, and artists, stories of Socrates, and a cornucopia of associated qualities: transcendent intelligence, ineffable creativity, and the (evil genius’s) terrible talent for destruction. McMahon, an FSU historian who previously authored Happiness: A History, collects the wildly divergent applications of the word, beginning with its first use 2,000 years ago, and assesses its impact as a cultural concept. Divine Fury may not help you formulate a succinct definition, but it will vastly enrich your understanding of genius.
Read about another entry on the list.

Visit the Divine Fury website and Darrin McMahon's website.

The Page 69 Test: Happiness: A History.

The Page 99 Test: Divine Fury.

--Marshal Zeringue