The Mind's Best Work
Published on 1. January 1981
Book
Paperback/Softback
324 pages
978-0-674-57624-7 (ISBN)
Description
Over the years, tales about the creative process have flourished-tales of sudden insight and superior intelligence and personal eccentricity. Coleridge claimed that he wrote "Kubla Khan" in one sitting after an opium-induced dream. Poe declared that his "Raven" was worked out "with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem."
D. N. Perkins discusses the creative episodes of Beethoven, Mozart, Picasso, and others in this exploration of the creative process in the arts, sciences, and everyday life.
D. N. Perkins discusses the creative episodes of Beethoven, Mozart, Picasso, and others in this exploration of the creative process in the arts, sciences, and everyday life.
Reviews / Votes
A delightful book, easy to read, amusing and jammed with intriguing "personal experiments," puzzles for the reader that offer insights into creative thinking. It is a valuable book because it summarizes well the results of recent investigations and effectively debunks a variety of cherished myths... Read the book for fun. Read it to find out what psychologists are up to. -- New York Times Book Review The Mind's Best Work [is] a guided tour of the new psychology of creative thinking... Perkins belongs in that rare company of Lewis Thomas and other popularizers of science who combine a lively style, playful wit and discriminating scholarship. * Newsday * A survey of scientific research that's also a work of playful wit. * Newsweek *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
31 line illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
381 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-57624-7 (9780674576247)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
D.N. Perkins is Director of Harvard Project Zero, Senior Research Associate, and Lecturer On Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Content
A Parable 1. Witnesses to Invention 2. Creative Moments 3. Ways of the Mind 4. Critical Moments 5. Searching For 6. Plans Down Deep 7. Plans Up Front 8. Lives of Inquiry 9. Having It 10. The Shape of Making Notes Sources Index