A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness

by Nassir Ghaemi Narrated by Adam Barr

Overview

The New York Times bestseller

“A glistening psychological history, faceted largely by the biographies of eight famous leaders . . .” -The Boston Globe

“A provocative thesis . . . Ghaemi's book deserves high marks for original thinking.” -The Washington Post

“Provocative, fascinating.” -Salon.com

Historians have long puzzled over the apparent mental instability of great and terrible leaders alike: Napoleon, Lincoln, Churchill, Hitler, and others. In A First-Rate Madness, Nassir Ghaemi, director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center, offers a myth-shattering exploration of the powerful connections between mental illness and leadership and sets forth a controversial, compelling thesis: The very qualities that mark those with mood disorders also make for the best leaders in times of crisis. From the importance of Lincoln's "depressive realism" to the lackluster leadership of exceedingly sane men as Neville Chamberlain, A First-Rate Madness overturns many of our most cherished perceptions about greatness and the mind.

Editorial Reviews

"When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy." Dave Barry's twisted words of wisdom reverberate in this bracing new examination of the surprising links between mental illness and successful leadership. Tufts professor of psychiatry Nassir Ghaemi delves into the mood disorders of revered leaders including Lincoln, Churchill, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy, to name only the most luminary. A First-Rate Madness also explores why relatively normal people such as George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter make unsuccessful presidents.

Kirkus Reviews

Ghaemi (Psychology, Tufts Univ. Medical School; The Rise and Fall of the Biopsychosocial Model, 2009, etc.) insists that failed leaders are mentally healthy. The best crisis leaders, more or less, are crazy.

The author demonstrates his scary thesis by thumbnail psycho-biographies of successful troubled leaders and a few flops who were, apparently, quite normal. Ghaemi's standard diagnostic indicators include symptoms, genetic history, course of illness and treatment. Available medical history and mostly secondary sources serve as validators of mental illnesses in varying severity. General Sherman and Ted Turner, he finds, were hyper-creators. Churchill and Lincoln were depressive realists. Depressed empathy characterized Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.FDR and JFK, both chronically ill, were resiliently manic. In hard times, good politics are bipartisan and great politicians are bipolar. The depressed see life realistically, and the deranged are creative. Though readers may question whether the truly normal can achieve leadership, George W. Bush, forexample,is a normal guy, writes the author in proof of his theory. Among the mentally healthy he places Richard Nixon, who failed in a crisis—one of his own making—because he saw the world clearly. For the most part, Ghaemi writes, Nazis, too, were normal folk. For his hypothesis to be taken seriously, the author was obliged to consider the quintessential psychopathic leader, Adolf Hitler, who was a charismatic leader who became crazy to excess. Ultimately, the author provides an unsatisfying diagnosis of the dictator, and he fails to examine, among others, Stalin, Hussein or bin Laden. A diseased mind, Ghaemi candidly admits, attracts stigma, but he insists that the essence of mental illness promotes crisis leadership.

A diverting, exceedingly provocative argument—sure to attract both skeptical and convinced attention.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159519986
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	01/30/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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