The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation - Hardcover

Grudin, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0899199402 ISBN 13: 9780899199405

Publisher: Ticknor & Fields, 1990

Synopsis

Examines the nature of creativity, exposes the inefficiencies of universities and corporations, and attacks the intolerance of liberalism

About this title

From the Publisher

Cover copy:
"Robert Grudin is a kind of modern Emerson--a born writer full of verve, humor, and human sympathy. His deftness of style and fresh perspectives will win him a wide audience." -- John H. Finley, Jr.

This is a book about creativity--about how habits of self-discovery, spirited inquiry, and individual expression lead to the bliss of insight and the boldness of new ideas. It's about the heroism of original thinking and the integrity, endurance, and courage such thinking demands.

This is also a book about innovation--about how great ideas make their sometimes painful way from the private mind into the public consciousness, changing it forever. It's about how all the things that can hamper our personal creativity--self-satisfaction, vacuous education, moral weakness--can also hamper our creativity as a society, and how society's institutions, no matter how "liberal," can discourage true innovation.

Remarkable in its understanding of the creative process, bracing in its attack on those forces that would undermine that process, "The Grace of Great Things" is unique among the many recent books on creativity in being both a witty, practical handbook to freer thinking and a philosophical meditation on the place of the creative individual in a modern democracy. "Creative achievement," writes Robert Grudin, "is the boldest initiative of mind. It is not the comfort of the safe harbor, it is the thrill of the reaching sail." "The Grace of Great Things" is not for the timid. It's for adventurous readers who would dare to become more creative, to use their minds to become more truly free.

ROBERT GRUDIN is a professor of English at the University of Oregon. "The Grace of Great Things" is part of an ongoing inquiry into creativity and human liberty begun in "Time and the Art of Living" and continued in "On Dialogue: An Essay in Free Thought." All three books are now available in uniform paperback editions from Mariner Books.

Synopsis

Drawing his examples from art and science, from history and the present day, Grudin sets out to demonstrate that creativity, although it may begin in pain, is akin to play and passion, and that it represents the highest expression of human freedom. He aims to expose what he regards as the stultification of American universities and corporations, and the mode of thought throughout the modern world that smothers fresh ideas. Practical reforms are suggested with a view to making institutions more receptive to innovation.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ticknor & Fields
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0899199402
• ISBN 13: 9780899199405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1