New Books
Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Sir Ken Robinson
Wild Bill Donovan by Douglas Waller
I am about half finished with the first book by creativity in education guru Sir Ken Robinson, who also has a new book out called, The Element. Technically, I have been reading a large volume of books, articles and research regarding creativity and creative thinking lately for a project, but most of those are academic in nature while Robinson is writing for mainstream audiences. I may or may not review it here, but it is clearly argued and Robinson is an effective popularizer.
The biography of Wild Bill Donovan is timely. If the idiosyncratic and at times improvisational OSS, staffed by gifted amateurs, eccentric adventurers and white-shoe, unapologetically elite WASPS, was something that would be impossible to exist in today’s rancid political climate, there are elements in that legacy that are in short supply in today’s modern and highly technological IC.
Ironically, many of the pioneers in creativity research that developed that field within cognitve psychology in America were themselves disproportionately veterans of the OSS.
March 11th, 2013 at 8:42 pm
We got better results with gifted amateurs and eccentrics than we do with colossal bureaucracies supposedly run on professional lines. Reagan’s selection of Casey was inspired. It was an Indian Summer of aggressiveness against the USSR, where the bureaucracy would have preferred a Cold War that literally never ended.
March 11th, 2013 at 9:09 pm
This is the second time I’ve heard of the Robinson book; definitely putting on my list. Agree w/Lex on the selection of Casey and his conclusion.
July 4th, 2013 at 2:40 am
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