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The Genius Myth: The dangerous allure of rebels, monsters and rule-breakers
A timely and provocative interrogation of the myth of genius, exploring the surprising inventions, inspirations, and distortions that elevate some lives to greatness and not others
One can tell what a society values by who it labels "genius." One can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate. In The Genius Myth, journalist Helen Lewis unearths how this one word has shaped, and distorted, ideas of success and achievement.
Lewis argues that the modern idea of genius—a single preternaturally gifted individual, usually white and male, exempt from social niceties and sometimes even the law—has run its course. Braiding deep research with her signature wit and lightness, Lewis dissects past and present models of genius in the West, and reveals a far deeper and more interesting picture of human creativity than conventional wisdom allows. She uncovers a battalion of overlooked wives and collaborators. She asks whether most inventions are inevitable. She wonders whether the Beatles would succeed today. And she confronts the vexing puzzle of Elon Musk, the tech disrupter who fancies himself an Übermensch.
Smart, funny, and provocative, The Genius Myth will challenge readers' assumptions about creativity, productivity, and innovation—and forever alter their mental image of the so-called genius.
One can tell what a society values by who it labels "genius." One can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate. In The Genius Myth, journalist Helen Lewis unearths how this one word has shaped, and distorted, ideas of success and achievement.
Lewis argues that the modern idea of genius—a single preternaturally gifted individual, usually white and male, exempt from social niceties and sometimes even the law—has run its course. Braiding deep research with her signature wit and lightness, Lewis dissects past and present models of genius in the West, and reveals a far deeper and more interesting picture of human creativity than conventional wisdom allows. She uncovers a battalion of overlooked wives and collaborators. She asks whether most inventions are inevitable. She wonders whether the Beatles would succeed today. And she confronts the vexing puzzle of Elon Musk, the tech disrupter who fancies himself an Übermensch.
Smart, funny, and provocative, The Genius Myth will challenge readers' assumptions about creativity, productivity, and innovation—and forever alter their mental image of the so-called genius.
339 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 17, 2025
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December 28, 2025
2.5 stars. Thousands of words that ultimately added up to a whole lot of nothing.
Additional thoughts:
I came across Helen Lewis on the podcast circuit years ago, which is also where I heard her first discuss this book as an analysis of how the conception of genius reflects what a culture prizes at that place and time. Unfortunately, that's not what this book ended up being. Mostly, it's just an excuse to complain about Elon Musk, praise the Beatles, and regale a list of asshole-intellectuals who made everyone around them miserable. Lewis never comes out an says what the obvious conclusion is--that academic intelligence doesn't often correlate with social intelligence--and instead just sort of rambles on, never really answering the question of why so many brilliant people become obsessed with conspiracy theories about IQ and Judgement Day beyond sheer arrogance.
Many popular history books are written by journalists rather than historians, and there's a very good reason for this. A journalist has to be a good writer and communicator to be successful, whereas many historians write in a way that is too technical or inaccessible for a general audience. One problem with journalists writing history books, however, is that they tend to come in with a political bias, and a presentist one at that. The inordinate amount of time devoted to Elon and the Beatles is one example of this, but there are others, such as Lewis' claim that the eugenics movement was "right-wing." She takes great issue with the Great Man Theory, which posits that history is shaped by a handful of remarkable individuals, and insists that it has been thoroughly debunked. Many historians have turned against the Great Man Theory because of the way it deifies elite white men, this is true. But if you want evidence that this theory has not been resoundingly discredited, try approaching it from the other side: would the arc of history have bent the same way had someone like Hitler or Stalin never lived? It is as much a mistake to discount the role of the individual as it is to overlook the apparatus that supported them.
Weirdly, Lewis then does a 180 in the last few pages, claiming that the people need geniuses as cultural inspirations. Yet nothing that came before this supports this conclusion. As the subtitle shows, The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea is an argument against the very concept of genius. What Lewis appears to really be saying is that people need heroes. But that's a different quandary altogether.
Additional thoughts:
I came across Helen Lewis on the podcast circuit years ago, which is also where I heard her first discuss this book as an analysis of how the conception of genius reflects what a culture prizes at that place and time. Unfortunately, that's not what this book ended up being. Mostly, it's just an excuse to complain about Elon Musk, praise the Beatles, and regale a list of asshole-intellectuals who made everyone around them miserable. Lewis never comes out an says what the obvious conclusion is--that academic intelligence doesn't often correlate with social intelligence--and instead just sort of rambles on, never really answering the question of why so many brilliant people become obsessed with conspiracy theories about IQ and Judgement Day beyond sheer arrogance.
Many popular history books are written by journalists rather than historians, and there's a very good reason for this. A journalist has to be a good writer and communicator to be successful, whereas many historians write in a way that is too technical or inaccessible for a general audience. One problem with journalists writing history books, however, is that they tend to come in with a political bias, and a presentist one at that. The inordinate amount of time devoted to Elon and the Beatles is one example of this, but there are others, such as Lewis' claim that the eugenics movement was "right-wing." She takes great issue with the Great Man Theory, which posits that history is shaped by a handful of remarkable individuals, and insists that it has been thoroughly debunked. Many historians have turned against the Great Man Theory because of the way it deifies elite white men, this is true. But if you want evidence that this theory has not been resoundingly discredited, try approaching it from the other side: would the arc of history have bent the same way had someone like Hitler or Stalin never lived? It is as much a mistake to discount the role of the individual as it is to overlook the apparatus that supported them.
Weirdly, Lewis then does a 180 in the last few pages, claiming that the people need geniuses as cultural inspirations. Yet nothing that came before this supports this conclusion. As the subtitle shows, The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea is an argument against the very concept of genius. What Lewis appears to really be saying is that people need heroes. But that's a different quandary altogether.
June 29, 2025
Quite an interesting book about what is meant by ‘genius’ and how geniuses are made, why some people are considered geniuses and others not etc. There is a lot about IQ tests and how they were used to determine whether a person might turn out a genius or not (not very successfully). The author discusses the people who have supported geniuses and enabled them to concentrate on their work, long suffering wives etc. and she raises the question of how many geniuses might never have got to fulfill their potential because of sex, race, class etc. She concentrates on geniuses who have been difficult and demanding, and seems to prefer to ignore those who have led relatively ordinary lives. She refers early in the book to ‘the Jane Austen problem’ but doesn’t elaborate on that, Jane Austen I suppose wasn’t temperamental enough to suit her idea of a genius. Likewise she writes a lot about Picasso but not much about artists whose lives were less turbulent. I strongly disagree with her that art and architecture stagnated in the Middle Ages - the period produced glorious art and architecture. When I finished reading the book I still wasn’t entirely sure what she thought of geniuses or, really, what point she was trying to make.
September 23, 2025
Whilst it was a very good read, I’m not going to skirt around how I did find the chapter on Chris Goode deeply ironic considering it perpetuated the protective bubble of the genius myth in its sympathetic and deeply empathetic coverage. Perhaps I’m a heartless creature, but I have absolutely zero space to extend empathy towards a man who quite overtly sexually abused young men and collected decades worth of child pornography. I don’t think a man like that needed “more friends”, he needed therapy. The fact his friend promised to visit him in jail after discovering the decades worth of child pornography is abhorrent, not endearing. The sympathetic and empathetic portrayal of rich white men like Goode is why they get away with it even after death — no one calls them out for being the monsters they are. And the fact that he’s rumoured to be a possible contender for the evil rapist in Baby Reindeer well… maybe I’m not a good person and I’m cruel, but I did find the cushioning of Goode not just in this book but by the media deeply uncomfortable
January 25, 2026
As some of my existing notes during my reading have pointed out, This book takes a misbegotten literary critic's approach to the Western cultural concept of genius, while it is uninterested or inexplicably dismissive about the actual question of whether there is such a thing as human genius. Her primary complaint is that this mythology, for which she provides a pop history of, creates license for a bunch of anti-social behavior and that it's inherently sexist. She mostly implies this latter point, revealing it only through snarky asides, which is her go-to rhetorical move rather than to openly defend this sophomoric claim. The immediate and fatal problem with her approach is that it's premised on a category error. Genius is not the only or most important social role for which we elaborate exceptions galore. We create license for all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons using all kinds of meaning-making social narratives (mythology). She's filing a complaint against basic human psychological and sociological tendencies. We create genius (hero) myths for many practical reasons, and these stories do useful things for us even when they also create externalities. Additionally, there are reasons to believe that our brains are adapted for this sort of thing. So debunking said stories is like walking the world stage wearing a shirt that says #NotInOnTheJoke.
Throughout the work, Lewis more or less assumes that extreme intellectual facility is not a real phenomenon. Does she bother to try and demonstrate this in any systematic way? No. Is she a blank slatist? No. She concedes that talent is real. She concedes that IQ testing can in some ways tell us some real things about certain peoples' cognitive abilities. She concedes that people's genetic endowments do have something to do with their cognitive abilities. Wait a minute! She's just conceded the central thesis of Galton's Hereditary Genius, a work she greatly critiques along with the man himself. I guess that makes Lewis, wait for it, a eugenicist!!
Anyway, she tries to back away from the uncomfortable sociobiological realities that modern science has continued to re-surface empirically over and over. She pivots to some Mensa bashing and covering the well-known frauds and fools involved in the early days of psychometrics and behavioral genetics (e.g. Cyril Burt, Hans Eysenck) in order to cast aspersions on certain ideas that actually continue to be the subject of mainstream research and to which she has already conceded many points. She also, of course, name checks the Flynn Effect to argue that social and cultural factors highly influence IQ testing outcomes and that high IQ scores don't necessarily generalize beyond certain abstract logical skills or whatever the test actually tests. The latter point is an oblique attack on the concept of general intelligence (g), which has a literature and an attendant philosophical debate that she doesn't directly engage with at all. I think some of these critiques of IQ testing can be relevant to some of the points she makes (including the cross-national comparisons), but these really have no direct bearing on whether or not genius exists or what it is. It just boils down to a critique of a particular style of edgy right-wing politics that is popular online.
As I hope I've made clear, Lewis' argumentative claims dynamically pivot around a normative worldview rather than arising naturally from a declared methodology. It's a polemic against the genius archetype rather than a finding or even just an innocently curious exploration of the concept. The book provides little insight at all into what genius could possibly be or even what intelligence could be. There's also a funny pop debunking of "The Great Man Theory of History," which seems itself immediately contradicted by daily news events given how much of today's events boil down to the whims of a few political leaders (Trump, Putin, Xi) and mega-billionaires (Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc). Lewis, herself, appears to lend a great deal of credence to the framework based on her writings about Elon Musk. Why even spend the time on him if what really matters are social and material conditions? The answer is, of course, that great men and ideas can matter in important and idiosyncratic ways even when the great sweep of history is unlikely to be bent by either. Nevertheless, many individuals, whose lives matter a great deal more to themselves than their concern for the great sweep of history, are deeply affected by other individuals and ideas. The extraordinary amount of talent, money, intelligence, physical prowess, power, etc that these eminent individuals may possess thus has an enormous social and material gravity in local social networks. This state of affairs won't be changing.
P.S. She barely touches on the lives of the many historically famous geniuses. She only does so when there is a particularly popular myth about their lives she can debunk (e.g. the Gauss classroom story). Meanwhile, she studiously avoids some of the more uncontroversial examples including John von Neumann and Srinivasa Ramanujan. Curious. Why would she do that!?
Throughout the work, Lewis more or less assumes that extreme intellectual facility is not a real phenomenon. Does she bother to try and demonstrate this in any systematic way? No. Is she a blank slatist? No. She concedes that talent is real. She concedes that IQ testing can in some ways tell us some real things about certain peoples' cognitive abilities. She concedes that people's genetic endowments do have something to do with their cognitive abilities. Wait a minute! She's just conceded the central thesis of Galton's Hereditary Genius, a work she greatly critiques along with the man himself. I guess that makes Lewis, wait for it, a eugenicist!!
Anyway, she tries to back away from the uncomfortable sociobiological realities that modern science has continued to re-surface empirically over and over. She pivots to some Mensa bashing and covering the well-known frauds and fools involved in the early days of psychometrics and behavioral genetics (e.g. Cyril Burt, Hans Eysenck) in order to cast aspersions on certain ideas that actually continue to be the subject of mainstream research and to which she has already conceded many points. She also, of course, name checks the Flynn Effect to argue that social and cultural factors highly influence IQ testing outcomes and that high IQ scores don't necessarily generalize beyond certain abstract logical skills or whatever the test actually tests. The latter point is an oblique attack on the concept of general intelligence (g), which has a literature and an attendant philosophical debate that she doesn't directly engage with at all. I think some of these critiques of IQ testing can be relevant to some of the points she makes (including the cross-national comparisons), but these really have no direct bearing on whether or not genius exists or what it is. It just boils down to a critique of a particular style of edgy right-wing politics that is popular online.
As I hope I've made clear, Lewis' argumentative claims dynamically pivot around a normative worldview rather than arising naturally from a declared methodology. It's a polemic against the genius archetype rather than a finding or even just an innocently curious exploration of the concept. The book provides little insight at all into what genius could possibly be or even what intelligence could be. There's also a funny pop debunking of "The Great Man Theory of History," which seems itself immediately contradicted by daily news events given how much of today's events boil down to the whims of a few political leaders (Trump, Putin, Xi) and mega-billionaires (Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc). Lewis, herself, appears to lend a great deal of credence to the framework based on her writings about Elon Musk. Why even spend the time on him if what really matters are social and material conditions? The answer is, of course, that great men and ideas can matter in important and idiosyncratic ways even when the great sweep of history is unlikely to be bent by either. Nevertheless, many individuals, whose lives matter a great deal more to themselves than their concern for the great sweep of history, are deeply affected by other individuals and ideas. The extraordinary amount of talent, money, intelligence, physical prowess, power, etc that these eminent individuals may possess thus has an enormous social and material gravity in local social networks. This state of affairs won't be changing.
P.S. She barely touches on the lives of the many historically famous geniuses. She only does so when there is a particularly popular myth about their lives she can debunk (e.g. the Gauss classroom story). Meanwhile, she studiously avoids some of the more uncontroversial examples including John von Neumann and Srinivasa Ramanujan. Curious. Why would she do that!?
July 11, 2025
When Helen Lewis's book The Genius Myth was released in summer 2025, it ruffled some feathers on social media--I know, this should go without saying; feathers exist in a perpetual state of rufflement on social media--from people who assumed it was a book about how there's no such thing as genius. They were incorrectly assuming that Lewis's title referred to dictionary definition #2 of myth, a widely held false belief or idea, rather than definition #1, a narrative used to explain a concept or phenomenon. Would geniuses make such a logical mistake? Hard to say. Lewis's book would likely have ruffled the same feathers regardless, given that her investigation of the history of arbitrarily labeling people, men primarily, as geniuses all leads directly to the present-day case of Elon Musk, whose story both begins and ends the book. Lewis's claims are compelling, even if she does try to shoehorn feminism in places where it doesn't always fit and her examples sometimes feel more random than systematic. I really enjoy Lewis's work for The Atlantic and appearances on various podcasts, where she's always a witty and wry highlight. I wish there'd been a little more humor in her book, but I'd recommend it to anyone interested in geniuses and the cultural stories we tell about them.
June 7, 2025
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
This was an interesting read, but (after reading the text) I was still unsure exactly what the author wanted to present. There are good arguments for why some people are considered "genius" and others not as well as good cultural explanations. In the end the author states that "there are many seeds of genius in the world. We must nurture as many as we can" and yet directly prior she says "we should be humble about where those qualities can be found." How is the average person to recognize genius if the author of a book on genius seems to not know if, and how, genius manifests itself and how to celebrate it.
This was an interesting read, but (after reading the text) I was still unsure exactly what the author wanted to present. There are good arguments for why some people are considered "genius" and others not as well as good cultural explanations. In the end the author states that "there are many seeds of genius in the world. We must nurture as many as we can" and yet directly prior she says "we should be humble about where those qualities can be found." How is the average person to recognize genius if the author of a book on genius seems to not know if, and how, genius manifests itself and how to celebrate it.
September 20, 2025
To be very clear, Helen Lewis is not trying to say that genius does not exist. She's written a hard critique of the mythology that we've adopted around genius, the stories we tell about what qualifies as genius and who gets the label. The ancient Greeks and Romans defined talent as something that was temporarily bestowed on people from the outside, a limited gift from the gods. These days, Western society has decided that genius is a deterministic quality of special individuals, who will display their specialness from a young age, and will be talented their entire lives at all things. With those impossible standards to live up to, is it any wonder that as much as we love anointing geniuses, we also delight in debunking them?
This book starts and ends with Elon Musk, a great, current example of the genius myth at work. Is Musk an engineering genius who was a big part of reviving the space industry and growing the market for electric cars? Or is he an entitled man-child promoting conspiracy theories on social media and throwing tantrums every time someone disagrees with him? Both stories are two sides of the same coin: the mythology of the Great Man, lone rebel, mad genius. The truth is more complex. Musk is both a talented engineer who runs some great companies making cars and rockets and a major jerk, but he's not talented because he's a jerk. Lewis' book examines how we flatten these complex stories about the complex lives of complex people into a simple tale that both elevates genius into a type of sainthood, and neatly excuses the rest of us from not being that creative, or achieving those heights. She also shows how we tolerate and justify the asshole (and sometimes worse) behavior, conflating it with the talent.
A good chunk of the book examines what Lewis dubs the scenius, the collaboration, supporters, infrastructure, and environment that support the "lone" genius. Musk benefited from not only $28,000 from his father to start his first company, he greatly benefited from starting that company in Silicon Valley at the time he did, not to mention all the dedicated employees who have worked for his visions over the years. Without wife and fellow artist Lee Krasner, "Jackson Pollock would probably have been nothing more than a non-functioning alcoholic." (pg. 191) The Beatles ceased to work when Paul McCarthy and John Lennon could no longer maintain the fine balance between their collaboration and their competition.
Another major focus of Lewis' book is why we declare some people geniuses, while equally smart and talented people are overlooked. Lennon was the genius and McCarthy often dismissed, even though it was that special chemistry between them that led to The Beatles' greatest songs. Lewis has an entire chapter explaining how Lennon fit the preferred story template better, including dying tragically before his time, and how that story was relentlessly promoted. That's also why you can't help but know about Musk, but you've probably never heard of Tim Berners-Lee, the creator behind the World Wide Web. "Without Tim Berners-Lee, there would have been no Twitter for Elon Musk to ruin." (page 18) But, Berners-Lee leads a quiet life, whereas Musk "performs the cultural role of genius with apparent enthusiasm: saying odd and provocative things, espousing extreme work habits, maintaining an unusual personal life, drawing attention to himself with salty tweets. Love him or hate him, we can't stop talking about him."
Lewis is a staff writer for The Atlantic and her book is written at the level of long-form journalism in a conversational style. Like lots of journalism, it's more broad than deep, but very accessible and a pleasure to read. (Although, as usual for me, I really wish it had an index.) It's a good blend of history, analysis, and cultural critique, explained well with humor and British ironic understatement.
This book starts and ends with Elon Musk, a great, current example of the genius myth at work. Is Musk an engineering genius who was a big part of reviving the space industry and growing the market for electric cars? Or is he an entitled man-child promoting conspiracy theories on social media and throwing tantrums every time someone disagrees with him? Both stories are two sides of the same coin: the mythology of the Great Man, lone rebel, mad genius. The truth is more complex. Musk is both a talented engineer who runs some great companies making cars and rockets and a major jerk, but he's not talented because he's a jerk. Lewis' book examines how we flatten these complex stories about the complex lives of complex people into a simple tale that both elevates genius into a type of sainthood, and neatly excuses the rest of us from not being that creative, or achieving those heights. She also shows how we tolerate and justify the asshole (and sometimes worse) behavior, conflating it with the talent.
A good chunk of the book examines what Lewis dubs the scenius, the collaboration, supporters, infrastructure, and environment that support the "lone" genius. Musk benefited from not only $28,000 from his father to start his first company, he greatly benefited from starting that company in Silicon Valley at the time he did, not to mention all the dedicated employees who have worked for his visions over the years. Without wife and fellow artist Lee Krasner, "Jackson Pollock would probably have been nothing more than a non-functioning alcoholic." (pg. 191) The Beatles ceased to work when Paul McCarthy and John Lennon could no longer maintain the fine balance between their collaboration and their competition.
Another major focus of Lewis' book is why we declare some people geniuses, while equally smart and talented people are overlooked. Lennon was the genius and McCarthy often dismissed, even though it was that special chemistry between them that led to The Beatles' greatest songs. Lewis has an entire chapter explaining how Lennon fit the preferred story template better, including dying tragically before his time, and how that story was relentlessly promoted. That's also why you can't help but know about Musk, but you've probably never heard of Tim Berners-Lee, the creator behind the World Wide Web. "Without Tim Berners-Lee, there would have been no Twitter for Elon Musk to ruin." (page 18) But, Berners-Lee leads a quiet life, whereas Musk "performs the cultural role of genius with apparent enthusiasm: saying odd and provocative things, espousing extreme work habits, maintaining an unusual personal life, drawing attention to himself with salty tweets. Love him or hate him, we can't stop talking about him."
Lewis is a staff writer for The Atlantic and her book is written at the level of long-form journalism in a conversational style. Like lots of journalism, it's more broad than deep, but very accessible and a pleasure to read. (Although, as usual for me, I really wish it had an index.) It's a good blend of history, analysis, and cultural critique, explained well with humor and British ironic understatement.
July 15, 2025
What if we identified genius in specific actions or works instead of more broadly labeling an individual associated with the action or work as a genius? What if genius is more the result of the right collaboration at the right moment in time? What if we are mistaking single acts of genius as a sign of broad intelligence denoting expertise in all fields? Do we glorify the idea of genius and allow a host of ill behaviors by those who exhibit it, making them a special class of people?
This book explores how the answers to these questions may very well all be a resounding yes, debunking mythology surrounding individual geniuses while still valuing their unique and incredible contributions to the world.
With the way the book was structured, it never felt like the author presented us with a specific, cohesive formula for what makes a genius. The reader is left to read the whole book and piece together what is and isn’t genius, and why- it never felt explicitly defined. Thus, in trying to explain this book to others, I’ve got lots of anecdotes to refer to, but no digestible takeaway.
This book explores how the answers to these questions may very well all be a resounding yes, debunking mythology surrounding individual geniuses while still valuing their unique and incredible contributions to the world.
With the way the book was structured, it never felt like the author presented us with a specific, cohesive formula for what makes a genius. The reader is left to read the whole book and piece together what is and isn’t genius, and why- it never felt explicitly defined. Thus, in trying to explain this book to others, I’ve got lots of anecdotes to refer to, but no digestible takeaway.
September 5, 2026
This book challenges the ideas we might have about geniuses that we see all the time in biopic movies. The author really softens the ground for digging in the first section, which tells the offensive history of people trying to define or measure genius. It made me open to the idea that we moderns might also not be able to grasp this concept as unbiased-ly as we might think. The latter half of the book could be read as a series of takedowns of great men, akin to statue toppling, but I didn’t read it that way. The counter-narratives she told about Van Gogh and Tolstoy, for example, were not only more accurate but as interesting as those artists’ popular mythology. (I wanna see a biopic about Van Gogh’s sister in law!)
There is a positive vision in the book of a publishing industry and a film industry that is more welcoming of biographies that contain more nuance. The author praised Oppenheimer as an example of a film where the main character had flaws that weren’t excused as “part of the gift” and was clearly aided by an indispensable team. I think that by being so interesting, this book made a small contribution to that aim.
There is a positive vision in the book of a publishing industry and a film industry that is more welcoming of biographies that contain more nuance. The author praised Oppenheimer as an example of a film where the main character had flaws that weren’t excused as “part of the gift” and was clearly aided by an indispensable team. I think that by being so interesting, this book made a small contribution to that aim.
June 26, 2025
An Engrossing Examination of a Concept that has changed a lot.
The subject of genius is a fascinating one. Helen Lewis looks at the history of the word. It’s earliest meaning was a a thing that happened to people. Ordinary people would suddenly be animated by the sprit of genius and their achievements would rise above the usual.
Lewis argues that after Vasari wrote his account of the great artists in renascence Florence, genius became something you could be, a quality you are born with. And that is how it has stayed ever since.
Once she has established this Lewis takes us on a whistlestop tour of modern ‘genii’, not just one’s we’ve heard of but ones that never were, only were because someone told them they were, or were but did something so bad they lost the unofficial title. She takes examples from the worlds of the arts, literature, and modern tech bros (but never sport which she does apologise for as it’s due to a lack in her knowledge and not the lack of genius in those fields).
I found this book really enjoyable and I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in modern history and current affairs.
The subject of genius is a fascinating one. Helen Lewis looks at the history of the word. It’s earliest meaning was a a thing that happened to people. Ordinary people would suddenly be animated by the sprit of genius and their achievements would rise above the usual.
Lewis argues that after Vasari wrote his account of the great artists in renascence Florence, genius became something you could be, a quality you are born with. And that is how it has stayed ever since.
Once she has established this Lewis takes us on a whistlestop tour of modern ‘genii’, not just one’s we’ve heard of but ones that never were, only were because someone told them they were, or were but did something so bad they lost the unofficial title. She takes examples from the worlds of the arts, literature, and modern tech bros (but never sport which she does apologise for as it’s due to a lack in her knowledge and not the lack of genius in those fields).
I found this book really enjoyable and I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in modern history and current affairs.
August 5, 2025
says he doesn’t defend elon musk then defends elon musk. my brother in christ, elon isn’t socially awkward, he’s a literal racist.
November 4, 2025
I walked straight into the trap here, I thought this was about some people who were, or weren’t, genius, in a biographical way. But isn’t! It’s about the flawed way we apply the word, which I’m on board with. Interesting read, took me a while to get momentum but I enjoyed it. Tis all a social construct! But then what isn’t…
July 8, 2025
I absolutely loved this book and hope everyone reads it. Helen Lewis wrote about a topic that’s extremely important in this day and age, which is what we consider “genius” to be. She instantly hooked me by discussing the idea of Elon Musk being a genius in the intro, and then she started going through the history of various people who have been considered geniuses. She critically discusses why these figures were called geniuses and why we need to challenge that idea.
My only critique is purely personal preference, and it’s that I wish it used a few more modern-day examples. I didn’t know who most of the people were that she discussed, so it was cool learning about them. But I do wish she touched on more people from recent years aside from Elon Musk. Again, that’s nothing against this book because it’s just hard to sell me on historical stuff. At the end of the day, I highly recommend this book because there are far too many public “intellectuals” held in high regard, and they’re not as smart as people think they are.
My only critique is purely personal preference, and it’s that I wish it used a few more modern-day examples. I didn’t know who most of the people were that she discussed, so it was cool learning about them. But I do wish she touched on more people from recent years aside from Elon Musk. Again, that’s nothing against this book because it’s just hard to sell me on historical stuff. At the end of the day, I highly recommend this book because there are far too many public “intellectuals” held in high regard, and they’re not as smart as people think they are.
August 17, 2025
I wanted to read something truly epic for my 300th book of the year, and I believe I chose perfectly. Not only has Helen Lewis created the most fascinating and enlightening non-fiction book I have read this year, but it is likely the most impactful book I have ever read. She delves deep into the world of academia to establish this hardhitting piece of literature that completely alters our perception of what a genius actually is. She opens up the mythology of the genius to expose the actual human cost behind it. Without the invisible support that quietly stood behind some of history's most celebrated names, their achievements would have amounted to nil. Sadly, in order to cultivate the myth of the genius, all the collaborators, wives, parents with financial support and inside connections, all these people must be quietly erased so that the average person assumes that all achievements and accolades belong to one super human individual.
This is one of the most interesting and maddening books I have ever read. No one's shortcomings should be excused, and no person's eccentricity should be ignored based solely on their academic prowess. A genius asshole is still just an asshole. 😂 This should be mandatory reading for all of society!
This is one of the most interesting and maddening books I have ever read. No one's shortcomings should be excused, and no person's eccentricity should be ignored based solely on their academic prowess. A genius asshole is still just an asshole. 😂 This should be mandatory reading for all of society!
August 11, 2026
UPDATE: ...so, almost immediately after I posted this review, um, yeah, we got a big problem. Big enough that I might not only have to rescind my score, but the publisher might have to rescind the title period. We're talking Norma Khouri's falsified account of a Jordanian "honor killing" or Clifford Irving's falsified biography of Howard Hughes-here big, potentially.
The issue stems from pg 238, where Lewis describes how some clever "armchair lawyering" allowed Ron Howard of all people to basically "legally steal" the film rights to Michael Laundor's memoir, The Laws of Madness, after the original studio sat on the script for production issues - only for its subject, the aforementioned Laundor, to be arrested and accused of murdering his girlfriend. The sensationalism allowed the other studio to get Laundor declared a public figure and to use The Laws of Madness as but one source in a larger aggregate to make A Beautiful Mind.
Only one problem, and if you've actually seen that film you know what it is, as my friend quite succinctly pointed out, "who the hell is Michael Laundor? You know the main character is based off John Nash, right?"
I poured back through the original pages and send him screenshots of said pages (though pg 240) and - sure enough, it's pretty unambiguous (ironically enough) that at best Lewis got Laundor's memoir of schizophrenia confused with John Nash's memoir of schizophrenia but also math stuff.
This isn't potentially the only instance as my friend also pointed out, as in the same chapter Lewis also describes the story of Jack Barth, a one-time Simpsons contributor, and his script Cover Version, where after cataclysmic events the MC wakes up only to find that everything has been the same as it always had been and there's no sign of any dramatic destruction occurring - except that, oddly enough, nobody's ever heard of The Beatles. He finds out John Lennon is a unionized fisherman and Ringo Starr a lawyer. Being the only one on the planet to remember their songs, he starts playing them, only to find out that in "this day and age" people think they're mediocre.
Particularly astute moviephiles will no doubt also recognize this as the plot, wholesale, of Richard Curtis' and Danny Boyle's Yesterday, the main difference being Though Lewis really tries to sell hard on the idea that Yesterday is solely the product of an out and out, straightforward script theft (she points out how in both films, John Lennon ends up being a unionized fisherman as an example), my friend (who has scripting experience) seems much less convinced.
So yeah, that that as you will. As my friend pointed out, Lewis could've conflated Laundor and Nash in the final draft without realizing and an editor and fact checker failed to, well, fact check and catch it. But best case scenario, it shows how an overworked publishing industry is failing and, well, really should be brought to someone's attention.
Not gonna lie, the first half is an utter snore-fest full of tangenital histrionics and obviously ham-fisted attempts at TMNT references.
But in the second half, Lewis is able to turn on the storytelling taps to full-tilt, giving an unsung layer of 19th, 20th and 21st century creative, dare I say, "geniuses" finally their due, and able to claw its way back to nothing short of a full 5 stars and a wholehearted recommended read.
The issue stems from pg 238, where Lewis describes how some clever "armchair lawyering" allowed Ron Howard of all people to basically "legally steal" the film rights to Michael Laundor's memoir, The Laws of Madness, after the original studio sat on the script for production issues - only for its subject, the aforementioned Laundor, to be arrested and accused of murdering his girlfriend. The sensationalism allowed the other studio to get Laundor declared a public figure and to use The Laws of Madness as but one source in a larger aggregate to make A Beautiful Mind.
Only one problem, and if you've actually seen that film you know what it is, as my friend quite succinctly pointed out, "who the hell is Michael Laundor? You know the main character is based off John Nash, right?"
I poured back through the original pages and send him screenshots of said pages (though pg 240) and - sure enough, it's pretty unambiguous (ironically enough) that at best Lewis got Laundor's memoir of schizophrenia confused with John Nash's memoir of schizophrenia but also math stuff.
This isn't potentially the only instance as my friend also pointed out, as in the same chapter Lewis also describes the story of Jack Barth, a one-time Simpsons contributor, and his script Cover Version, where after cataclysmic events the MC wakes up only to find that everything has been the same as it always had been and there's no sign of any dramatic destruction occurring - except that, oddly enough, nobody's ever heard of The Beatles. He finds out John Lennon is a unionized fisherman and Ringo Starr a lawyer. Being the only one on the planet to remember their songs, he starts playing them, only to find out that in "this day and age" people think they're mediocre.
Particularly astute moviephiles will no doubt also recognize this as the plot, wholesale, of Richard Curtis' and Danny Boyle's Yesterday, the main difference being Though Lewis really tries to sell hard on the idea that Yesterday is solely the product of an out and out, straightforward script theft (she points out how in both films, John Lennon ends up being a unionized fisherman as an example), my friend (who has scripting experience) seems much less convinced.
So yeah, that that as you will. As my friend pointed out, Lewis could've conflated Laundor and Nash in the final draft without realizing and an editor and fact checker failed to, well, fact check and catch it. But best case scenario, it shows how an overworked publishing industry is failing and, well, really should be brought to someone's attention.
Not gonna lie, the first half is an utter snore-fest full of tangenital histrionics and obviously ham-fisted attempts at TMNT references.
But in the second half, Lewis is able to turn on the storytelling taps to full-tilt, giving an unsung layer of 19th, 20th and 21st century creative, dare I say, "geniuses" finally their due, and able to claw its way back to nothing short of a full 5 stars and a wholehearted recommended read.
Did Not Finish
February 26, 2026DNF @ 35% - This is a non-fiction book questioning the meaning and usefulness of the term genius. The author made a good case in the first third of the book that when we label someone as a genius, society tends to excuse behavior from that person that would otherwise not be tolerated. She questions the rationale behind labeling someone a genius and argues that term usually wipes out the contributions that the so called "genius" had from supporting people in their life. It is an interesting premise, but I felt like I was not up to reading a book this length about it. The author made valid arguments, and I did not feel the need to read a few more hundred pages of them to be convinced that labeling successful white men geniuses is an outdated practice based on lifting up that demographic at the expense of others.
October 7, 2026
3.8 / 5
Audio. Šiek tiek vietomis nuobodoka, tas pats per tą patį tik su skirtingais žmonėmis. Irgi klausiau keletą podcast'ų su autore tai jie buvo daugiau žadantys nei knyga. Bet šiaip buvo įdomu pvz apie Šekspyrą. Tai bendrai tikrai neblogai, bet truputuką nuobodoka. Bet gal geriau sueis faktus ir informaciją godžiai kolekcionuojantiems žmonėms. Man kažkaip jeigu nėra fun tai greit pasidaro nuobodoka, Raigardo ir sunku atskirti kur aš, kur knyga,ir kur gal ne visai man. Beje podcastuose buvo fun! Kitą vertus man kažkokio jausmo yra, kad gal ir autoriai nuo pusės knygos biški atsibodo rašyti, bet įsispyrėįsau į minkštąją ir "ai, vistiek reikia daumušti".,.
Audio. Šiek tiek vietomis nuobodoka, tas pats per tą patį tik su skirtingais žmonėmis. Irgi klausiau keletą podcast'ų su autore tai jie buvo daugiau žadantys nei knyga. Bet šiaip buvo įdomu pvz apie Šekspyrą. Tai bendrai tikrai neblogai, bet truputuką nuobodoka. Bet gal geriau sueis faktus ir informaciją godžiai kolekcionuojantiems žmonėms. Man kažkaip jeigu nėra fun tai greit pasidaro nuobodoka, Raigardo ir sunku atskirti kur aš, kur knyga,ir kur gal ne visai man. Beje podcastuose buvo fun! Kitą vertus man kažkokio jausmo yra, kad gal ir autoriai nuo pusės knygos biški atsibodo rašyti, bet įsispyrėįsau į minkštąją ir "ai, vistiek reikia daumušti".,.
January 6, 2026
I get the arguments against common societal nature to forgive so called brilliant but flawed people (a whole chapter devoted to Elon Musk for example) but I don’t get what’s the point of this, or any meaningful takeaway / application we are supposed to have from this. Don’t bother, just a read summary of this book.
November 20, 2025
Interesting and well argued book on how "genius" is more of a branding term for personal mythology than something someone *is*.
October 2, 2025
Excellent,if not life changing long essays on the problematic history of genius.
Strong recommendation for fans of micro histories(even though it is a relatively broad concept) and pop psychology/education.
Strong recommendation for fans of micro histories(even though it is a relatively broad concept) and pop psychology/education.
August 26, 2025
A superb overview of the stories we tell about people who are described as geniuses.
Insightful, witty and thoroughly enjoyable.
Insightful, witty and thoroughly enjoyable.
September 3, 2025
well researched
Fascinating concept and good execution. The book is nothing if not timely.
Lewis definitely shed much-needed light on a lot of whitewashed historical figures.
Fascinating concept and good execution. The book is nothing if not timely.
Lewis definitely shed much-needed light on a lot of whitewashed historical figures.
October 17, 2026
Interesting premise and some interesting anecdotes but very poorly executed. I left a lot of notes on my kobo that were simply "???". I honestly don't understand what the point of this book was. Deciding to open and close it with a focus on Elon Musk and both sides-ing him was certainly a choice.
It all kind of made sense when I realized that this is, in fact, the same Helen Lewis who's well known for being a transphobe. She mentions Elon's transphobia exactly once, in the very last pages of the book and uses the most benign example possible. Too bad I realized so late orI wouldn't have bothered reading this.
It all kind of made sense when I realized that this is, in fact, the same Helen Lewis who's well known for being a transphobe. She mentions Elon's transphobia exactly once, in the very last pages of the book and uses the most benign example possible. Too bad I realized so late orI wouldn't have bothered reading this.
July 16, 2025
Brilliant. I would say Helen Lewis is a genius, but she would say I didn’t pay attention to the last chapter.
February 14, 2026
The genius myth is one of those books that I think everyone knows is inherently true. There are maybe a handful of geniuses as the popular mythology defines: someone whom requires very little or no support or training and can do amazing things from birth or some such. The book deconstructs that mythology that folks typically lionizes as the prototypical genius. that of the long suffering artist, the misunderstood technologist, the brash and abrasive businessmen and go on to say that even if these people are influential, they're not necessarily genius.
The problem lies in mostly "what is a genius, and how do we identify someone clearly as a genius". and also "do geniuses really exist if it takes time to become one". I think most people don't really believe that some folks are born from the womb able to play piano with no exposure, or be able to succeed in life without a great support system, and yet mythology demands extraordinary deeds from our anointed (or self proclaimed) heroes, even if we have to make up those deeds post fact.
Its probably as much biology as anything else, that we humans demand genius in our mythology. Its very hard to go "ordinary folks did this, and it was mostly luck that enabled them to be in the right place at the right time" becuase at the heart of it, humans have a hard time accepting that most of life IS just a lucky accident and hence anything that springs forth from that life is just another series of lucky accidents. And the basics math of it is that, while any one of us being that lucky is rare, as far as statistics is concerned, its guaranteed to happen. Humans are just not wired to intuitively understand and accept difficult to understand concepts and statistics is definitely one of the harder to understand ones.
The book IS entertaining, mostly becuase it combines a history lesson and various anecodotes to one. I don't think the thesis is very strongly defended, as its mostly just an entertaining read, but the major points are there. That is, genius is mostly happy accident, and we shouldn't listen to geniuses outside of their fields. Too many folks want to extrapolate their genius in one area (say, being a genius artist) to being a genius in other unrelated areas (also a genius in being a doctor..?).
With that in mind, the 3* rating is there for the broad strokes of history you get. the tolstoy sections alone were great reading,the later sections on musk not as much....but the point remains.
Mild recommend if you're a fan of history and don't think too hard about the thesis itself.
The problem lies in mostly "what is a genius, and how do we identify someone clearly as a genius". and also "do geniuses really exist if it takes time to become one". I think most people don't really believe that some folks are born from the womb able to play piano with no exposure, or be able to succeed in life without a great support system, and yet mythology demands extraordinary deeds from our anointed (or self proclaimed) heroes, even if we have to make up those deeds post fact.
Its probably as much biology as anything else, that we humans demand genius in our mythology. Its very hard to go "ordinary folks did this, and it was mostly luck that enabled them to be in the right place at the right time" becuase at the heart of it, humans have a hard time accepting that most of life IS just a lucky accident and hence anything that springs forth from that life is just another series of lucky accidents. And the basics math of it is that, while any one of us being that lucky is rare, as far as statistics is concerned, its guaranteed to happen. Humans are just not wired to intuitively understand and accept difficult to understand concepts and statistics is definitely one of the harder to understand ones.
The book IS entertaining, mostly becuase it combines a history lesson and various anecodotes to one. I don't think the thesis is very strongly defended, as its mostly just an entertaining read, but the major points are there. That is, genius is mostly happy accident, and we shouldn't listen to geniuses outside of their fields. Too many folks want to extrapolate their genius in one area (say, being a genius artist) to being a genius in other unrelated areas (also a genius in being a doctor..?).
With that in mind, the 3* rating is there for the broad strokes of history you get. the tolstoy sections alone were great reading,the later sections on musk not as much....but the point remains.
Mild recommend if you're a fan of history and don't think too hard about the thesis itself.
December 1, 2025
There are maybe two or three decent chapters in here, but it goes on and on and on without saying much. you don't get the impression that there is a clear thesis, or that the author is worth listening to, honestly. She spends a lot of time describing movies that she's seen, and at times it feels like a lot of Wikipedia paragraphs copied and pasted together.
Still, I'll give it two stars because there were a couple of decent chapters, particularly in part two, which was almost shocking in its coherence, when compared to the first part. There may be a decent long form article here, if you clip the three or four best chapters and slap them together, but that's it.
Still, I'll give it two stars because there were a couple of decent chapters, particularly in part two, which was almost shocking in its coherence, when compared to the first part. There may be a decent long form article here, if you clip the three or four best chapters and slap them together, but that's it.
November 5, 2025
This book has its share of hits and misses. Despite the political biases present, the author did a great job describing the problems associated with the label of genius. She provided a great historical narrative about past influential figures in the arts and sciences. She discussed their successes and their flaws in equal measure, but it felt like she only scratched the surface about the psychology behind intelligence. She didn't provide any deep insight into the complications between intelligence and achievement.
Before college was more accessible, having a high IQ from an IQ test was like having an advanced degree in a way. Although this inflated people's egos and caused them to become more solidified in their opinions, even if they were incorrect.
IQ Tests and Standardized tests are both activities that favor the left hemisphere of the brain which focuses on tasks that are related to logic, sequence, and categorization, but these tests neglect emotion, creativity and connection which are associated with the right hemisphere of the brain. It is also important to consider that all of the people discussed in the book came from Western Europe or the U.S. which are both cultures that are individualistic, so people are more likely to be influenced by individuals such as celebrities, and geniuses fall into this category. Western audiences are also captivated by stories of individuals. Currently, the most popular songs on the charts are by individual artists, not bands.
If I could summarize this book in a few sentences it would be:
High IQ doesn't translate to real-world achievement. Because someone excels in some domains does not mean they will excel in all domains. Environment and circumstances play a role in success just as much as innate ability.
Before college was more accessible, having a high IQ from an IQ test was like having an advanced degree in a way. Although this inflated people's egos and caused them to become more solidified in their opinions, even if they were incorrect.
IQ Tests and Standardized tests are both activities that favor the left hemisphere of the brain which focuses on tasks that are related to logic, sequence, and categorization, but these tests neglect emotion, creativity and connection which are associated with the right hemisphere of the brain. It is also important to consider that all of the people discussed in the book came from Western Europe or the U.S. which are both cultures that are individualistic, so people are more likely to be influenced by individuals such as celebrities, and geniuses fall into this category. Western audiences are also captivated by stories of individuals. Currently, the most popular songs on the charts are by individual artists, not bands.
If I could summarize this book in a few sentences it would be:
High IQ doesn't translate to real-world achievement. Because someone excels in some domains does not mean they will excel in all domains. Environment and circumstances play a role in success just as much as innate ability.
September 30, 2025
Honestly, I wanted to love the book. The organization was very poor, there were like 300 names referred to in the book. I would’ve loved a deeper dive on a few and then left us to make our own conclusions. You can read the first and last chapter and basically get the gist of everything. Wasn’t for me!
August 28, 2025
It's easy to enjoy a book when you wholeheartedly agree with its central argument but the fact that this book is engagingly written and offers a wide range of examples across time and disciplines definitely helps too.
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