Description
This New York Times bestseller is a myth-shattering exploration of the robust connections between mental sickness and leadership. Historians have long confused over the obvious mental instability of serious and terrible leaders alike: Napoleon, Lincoln, Churchill, Hitler, and others. In A First-Rate Madness, Nassir Ghaemi, director of the Mood Disorders Programme at Tufts Medical Center, provides and sets forth a controversial, compelling thesis: the very qualities that mark the ones with mood disorders also make for the most efficient leaders in times of crisis. From the significance of Lincoln’s “depressive realism” to the lacklustre leadership of exceedingly sane men as Neville Chamberlain, A First-Rate Madness overturns many of our so much cherished perceptions about greatness and the mind.