Research Catalog

Title

Powers of two : finding the essence of innovation in creative pairs / Joshua Wolf Shenk.

Author

Shenk, Joshua Wolf.

Publication

Boston : Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xxv, 339 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"Recently writers like Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Johnson, and Clay Shirky have sought to explain creativity as the work of lucky, hardworking people or the result of certain qualities of a particular environment or group of people. Joshua Wolf Shenk shows how such notions, as appealing as they are, miss the essence of creativity, which is generated by people working in pairs. From John Lennon and Paul McCartney to Pierre and Marie Curie to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Shenk portrays many of history's most iconic creative duos, drawing on new scientific research and building an argument that will reshape our view of the individual, relationships, and society itself. Along the way, he reveals how pairs begin to talk, think, and even look like each other; how the most successful ones thrive on conflict; why they break up; and more. He also marshals new research that suggests how deeply the notion of pairing influences our psyches: even when we're alone, we're collaborating with the voice inside our head. At once intuitive and deeply surprising, Powers of Two is mind-blowing"--

Subject

• Creative ability
• Creative thinking
• Couples
• Artistic collaboration
• Teams in the workplace
• PSYCHOLOGY / Creative Ability
• SOCIAL SCIENCE / General
• HISTORY / Social History
• ART / General

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-324) and index.

ISBN

• 9780544031593 (cloth)
• 0544031598 (cloth)
• 9780544334465 (trade paper)
• 0544334469 (trade paper)
• 9780544264090 (trade paper (international edition))
• 0544264096 (trade paper (international edition))

LCCN

• 2014011868
• 40023886652

OCLC

• 862028901
• ocn862028901
• SCSB-5757220

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries