Leonardo's Brain: Understanding Da Vinci's Creative Genius: Library Edition

Shlain, Leonard

3.69

629 ratings by Goodreads

9781491529843: Leonardo's Brain: Understanding Da Vinci's Creative Genius: Library Edition

ISBN 10: 1491529849 ISBN 13: 9781491529843

Publisher: Brilliance Audio Lib Edn, 2014

Bestselling author Leonard Shlain explores the life, art, and mind of Leonardo da Vinci, seeking to explain his singularity by looking at his achievements in art, science, psychology, and military strategy (yes), and then employing state of the art left-right brain scientific research to explain his universal genius. Shlain shows that no other person in human history has excelled in so many different areas as Da Vinci and he peels back the layers to explore the how and the why.

Leonardo’s Brain uses Da Vinci as a starting point for an exploration of human creativity. With his lucid style, and his remarkable ability to discern connections in a wide range of fields, Shlain brings the listener into the world of history’s greatest mind.

Shlain asserts that Leonardo’s genius came from a unique creative ability that allowed him to understand and excel in a wide range of fields. From here Shlain jumps off and discusses the history and current research on human creativity that revolves around the right brain-left brain split. Most of us now know that there is a split between the right and the left side of the brain; the left primarily controls our rational mind, the right our emotions.

Shlain discusses the cutting edge research that is refining our understanding of the split brain model and deepening our knowledge about the nature of human creativity. There is more integration between the left and right brains than previously thought. Shlain argues that Leonardo was unique in human history for the degree of integration that he showed. He also speculates on whether or not the qualities of Leonardo’s brain and his creativity presage the future evolution of man.

Leonardo’s Brain integrates art, history, science, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy uniting all of the ideas that Leonard Shlain studied and wrote about since the publication of the influential and bestsellingArt and Physics in 1991.

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Review:

"Leonard Shlain was a personal inspiration to me and so many others. His ability to synthesize not only information but also genuine wisdom across multiple and disparate disciplines was extraordinary. His talent for communicating to the rest of us what he had discovered was a rare gift. His death is a loss to us all." - Al Gore

"Leonard Shlain was an extraordinary spirit and his was an extraordinary mind. He will be sorely missed. " - Norman Lear

Praise for Art & Physics:
."..a Tour de Force... a brilliant, accessible and visionary look the most revolutionary artists and scientists from the golden Age of Greece to the present." "The Los Angeles Times"
Praise for "The Alphabet vs. The Goddess"
"Bold and fascinating" - "T""he Washington Post Book World "

"Shlain's ability to synthesize not only information but also genuine wisdom across multiple and disparate disciplines was extraordinary." --Al Gore"By exploring Leonardo da Vinci's brain through the lens of contemporary neuroscience, Leonard Shlain not only celebrates da Vinci's legendary creativity, he shows how we can integrate and strengthen both sides of our minds and tap into the amazing possibilities within ourselves." Arianna Huffington"This book is a gift from the heavens where Leonard Shlain is today and another bright example of his force and spirit shining through the prism of the mind of Leonardo da Vinci." Norman LearPraise for Art & Physics: "a Tour de Force... a brilliant, accessible and visionary look the most revolutionary artists and scientists from the golden Age of Greece to the present." The Los Angeles TimesPraise for The Alphabet vs. The Goddess"Bold and fascinating" - The Washington Post Book World"

About the Author:

Leonard Shlain was a best-selling author and San Francisco surgeon. Admired among artists, scientists, philosophers, anthropologists and educators, Shlain authored three best-selling books: Art & Physics, Alphabet vs. The Goddess and Sex, Time, and Power. He delivered multimedia presentations based upon his books in venues around the world including Harvard, The New York Museum of Modern Art, CERN, Los Alamos, The Florence Academy of Art and the European Council of Ministers. His fans include Al Gore, Norman Lear and singer Bjork who credited Shlain 's Alphabet vs. The Goddess with inspiring her in her single "Wanderlust" and the album Volta.Dr. Shlain was a surgeon for 38 years at California Pacific Medical Center where he headed the Laparoscopic Surgery Department and an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF. Shlain began his surgical residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York and then completed it at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco where he set up his general surgical practice in 1969. In 1973, he volunteered and served as a trauma surgeon in Israel during the Yom Kippur War. An early pioneer of gallbladder and hernia laparoscopic surgery in 1990, he was flown around the world to train doctors in the new techniques, patented several surgical instruments and specialized in gallbladder and hernia operations.Al Gore said: "Leonard Shlain was a personal inspiration to me and so many others. His ability to synthesize not only information but also genuine wisdom across multiple and disparate disciplines was extraordinary. His talent for communicating to the rest of us what he had discovered was a rare gift"Shlain died in May 2009 at the age of 71 after a battle with brain cancer.

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