With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the
insight of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and
the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air
to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the
flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen?
Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using
his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture,
Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story
of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives,
our society, and our culture forward. Beginning with Charles
Darwin's first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral
reef and drawing connections to the intellectual
hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant
success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need
to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of
good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory,
convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies t