In this book leading cultural anthropologist Anton Blok sheds new
light on the lives and achievements of pioneers who revolutionized
science and art over the past five centuries, demonstrating that
adversity rather than talent alone was crucial to their success.
Through a collective biography of some ninety radical innovators,
including Erasmus, Spinoza, Newton, Bach, Sade, Darwin, Melville,
Mendel, Cezanne, Curie, Brancusi, Einstein, Wittgenstein, Keynes,
and Goodall, Blok shows how a significant proportion in fact
benefited from social exclusion. Beethoven s increasing deafness
isolated him from his friends, creating more time for composing and
experimenting, while Darwin s chronic illness gave him an excuse to
avoid social gatherings and get on with his work. Adversity took
various forms, including illegitimate birth, early parental loss,
conflict with parents, bankruptcy, chronic illness, physical
deficiencies, neurological and genetic disorders, minority status,
peripheral origins, poverty, exile, and detention. Blok argues,
however, that all these misfortunes had the same effect: alienation
from mainstream society. As outsiders, innovators could question
conventional beliefs and practices. With little to lose, they could
take chances and exploit opportunities. With governments,
universities and industry all emphasizing the importance of
investing in innovation, typically understood to mean planned and
focussed research teams, this book runs counter to conventional
wisdom. For far more often, radical innovation in science and art
is entirely unscripted, resulting from trial and error by
individuals ready to take risks, fail, and start again.
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