Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs - Hardcover

We sometimes think of creativity as coming from brilliant loners. In fact, it more often happens when bright people pair up and complement each other. Shenk s fascinating book shows how to spark the power of this phenomenon. Walter Isaacson

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This surprising, compelling, deeply felt book banishes the idea of solitary genius by demonstrating that our richest art and science come from collaboration: we need one another not only for love, but also for thinking and imagining and growing and being. Andrew Solomon

All future accounts of artistry and innovation will be enriched by the treasures Shenk has uncovered in the creativity of pairs. Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift
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A lyrical, revelatory synthesis of cultural history and social psychology that shows how one-to-one collaboration drives creative success
Weaving together the lives of scores of creative duos from John Lennon and Paul McCartney to Marie and Pierre Curie to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Joshua Wolf Shenk identifies the core qualities of that dizzying experience we call chemistry. Revealing the six essential stages through which creative intimacy unfolds, Shenk draws on academic research, original reportage, and historical evidence to show that creativity is not the work of an individual mind. In fact, it is a social activity, and the pair is its primary embodiment. Along the way, he describes how partners in pairs begin to talk, think, and even look like each other; how the most successful ones thrive on conflict; and why some pairs flame out while others endure.

In a book as formally inventive as it is intellectually compelling, Shenk shows that when it comes to the innovations that shape our culture, two is the magic number. Dyads are behind everything from South Park to the American civil rights movement to Starry Night; indeed, they are essential to creative thinking itself. Even when we re alone, we are, in a sense, collaborating with a voice inside our head.

At once intuitive and myth-shattering, Powers of Two changes how we think about how we think, and inspires us to reach out and think with each other.