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Overview

Ancient Athens and Silicon Valley are thousands of miles apart, but they both have a legacy of innovation. Why? What made them so innovative?

To answer this question, let’s look at the world throughout history to see what places have been conducive to creativity and innovation. This will give us a perspective on where we’ve come from and how far we’ve come.

You will learn about the golden age of Hangzhou, China, which lasted hundreds of years; how Edinburgh’s Scottish Enlightenment was fueled by practicality; and why Florence flourished during the Renaissance because of its invention of purgatory.

Big Idea #1: Genius is not inherited; it is bound to place.

A genius is someone who can come up with new, surprising and valuable ideas. However, there’s no way to predict whether an individual will possess this potential.

In the past, some thinkers believed that genius could be predicted by genetic inheritance. But modern science proved them wrong. One of these thinkers was Francis Galton, who came up with the idea that civilizations flourished or failed because of their genes. For him, a regular influx of immigrants and refugees brought new blood into societies, boosting creativity.

Galton believed that some races were superior to others. He was a racist who assumed that the ancient Greeks declined because they started marrying people of other races and cultures, like Asians.

Furthermore, Galton’s theory does not explain creativity well. Modern psychologists believe that genes play only a minor role in the development of creative genius. In reality, it takes place at the meeting point between person and place.

Dean Simonton, a leading researcher in human creativity, found that certain places are epicenters of creative activity. These Golden Ages were the cradles of many brilliant minds at once. There are examples of such creative cities from ancient Greece and we can determine what factors led to their emergence by looking at these historical cases.

Big Idea #2: Athens is the mother city of creative genius.

Ancient Athens had a lot of impressive people. It was the birthplace of great philosophers, statesmen and playwrights. So how did this happen?

Athenians loved their city and had a sense of civic duty. They were interested in public affairs, and they met often to discuss them. Socrates was a pioneer for this way of thinking.

Athens invested a lot of money into the arts, entertainment and festivities. For example, wealthy Athenians paid for plays by Euripides to be performed.

The Athenians were also innovative because they adopted foreign ideas. They didn’t just adopt Babylonian mathematics, but they also used Phoenician letters to create their alphabet and imitated Egyptian architecture. In fact, some of the Athenians embraced foreign fashion and tried on new clothes from other cultures.

A big part of what made Athens a great city was the culture of walking. Everyone from citizens to philosophers walked everywhere, and Aristotle himself gave lectures while strolling through the grounds of his academy, the Lyceum. Modern psychologists have proven that people who walk more are better at thinking creatively since they’re constantly exposed to new stimuli.

Athens is arguably one of the most important cities in Western culture. It’s where a lot of creativity and inspiration began, which later grew into other great works.

Big Idea #3: Hangzhou sustained an unprecedentedly long Golden Age of genius.

While Europe was stuck in the Dark Ages, China’s Song Dynasty was flourishing. This happened because of a combination of Buddhism and Confucianism that allowed for innovation to flourish. For example, Buddhist monasteries perfected woodblock printing which led to the creation of maps and other innovations.