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Leonardo's Brain: Understanding da Vinci's Creative Genius Audiobook
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Publisher Description
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 bestselling Art and Physics in 1991.
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“Along with his beautiful sonority, Grover Gardner’s artistry with pitch and tone variations makes this excellent book a melodic kaleidoscope of big ideas, fascinating biographical tidbits, and startling insights…Shlain’s forays into anthropology, the arts, and even quantum physics make this a most engaging neuroscience book and an often touching portrait of one of history’s creative giants. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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“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, #1 New York Times bestselling author -
“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 Lear, Emmy Award-winner -
“Shlain succeeds in keeping Leonardo’s Brain accessible and enjoyable. It is intellectual while remaining conversational and is certainly unlike the many, many other books written about da Vinci.”
— Civil Engineering magazine -
“Shlain applies modern neuroscience to probe one of history’s most innovative brains and uses da Vinci as a lens through which to view the broader issues of brain organization, creativity, and consciousness.”
— Scientist magazine -
“An enthusiastic mixture of history, neuroscience, and pop psychology…In this study of the great polymath, surgeon and bestselling author Shlain…proceeds to deliver a fine overview of brain function and the psychology of creativity…He has written an entertaining mixture of facts and speculation on one of history’s immortals.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Shlain’s ability to synthesize not only information but also genuine wisdom across multiple and disparate disciplines was extraordinary.”
— Al Gore, praise for the author
Awards
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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About Leonard Shlain
Leonard Shlain (1937–2009) was a bestselling author, inventor, and surgeon. Admired among artists, scientists, philosophers, anthropologists, and educators, Shlain authored three bestselling 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.
About Grover Gardner
Grover Gardner (a.k.a. Tom Parker) is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.