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

Will Definitely Give You A Lot to Think About

Studying what makes leaders great and what qualities leaders have in common is nothing new but the way that Ghaemi looks at people like Ted Turner, JFK, and Gandhi is off the beaten path. We want to know what made these people great. Why did they rise to the top? How did they become such great leaders? Can we learn from them? Can we emulate their characteristics? This book covers some of the most well known men from the world's recent history. All of the men that Ghaemi covers have one thing in common, they have some sort of mood disorder.

I really liked the way that this book was laid out. Ghaemi devotes a chapter to each of the characteristics that he claims are both present in great leaders and those that have mood disorders including realism, empathy, resilience, and creativity. Each chapter begins with a description of the characteristic and then profiles of leaders who exemplified those characteristics. It was really interesting to see how that connection between a mood disorder, something that is often seen as debilitating in some way or limiting, and great leadership in tough times.


The book was fascinating. Ghaemi looks at personal letters and history to show how these leaders were affected by their mood disorders. Ghaemi tests his hypothesis even further by looking at how leaders without mood disorders sometimes don't handle tough times as well as they could. He looks specifically at Tony Blair and George W. Bush. One thing I did wonder is whether or not Ghaemi believes that you must have some sort of mood disorder in order to be a good leader. That point is never really made clear in the book.


You don't have to be a psychology major to get anything out of this book. Ghaemi does a really good job of both drawing the reader in and giving a thorough picture of where he is coming from. One of my favorite things about books is when I'm left with new questions to explore after I'm finished reading and A First Rate Madness definitely did that for me!


Bottom line: This is a very interesting study in leadership and gave me a lot of things to think about. This book was definitely enjoyable.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A must for anyone who is interested in psychology

this is just a great book, i am four chapter's into it and it keeps getting more interesting as i go. The part that really caught my attention was the whole look at Winston Churchill. very interesting. could use more material for the price but overall a definite 5 star.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

First rate book on temperament

Nassir Ghaemi's "A First Rate Madness" is a carefully written layman's book on the relationship between leadership and mental abnormality and/or illness. The author posits that this relationship can take strange forms and "illness" doesn't always mean deficit.
As a bipolar, I learned about my mental makeup while reading about famous leaders whose lives were often strangely similar to mine(and not always in a good way). The author's concept of "empathy" stemming from past depressive episodes can teach us both biography and psychology.
Dr. Ghaemi is a political liberal, and it shows through in spots. Overall, he tries to remain evenhanded and largely succeeds.
This conservative bipolar, showing perhaps "openness to experience" recommends "A First Rate Madness".

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read this book during the winter of 2011 when school was out.

I read this book during the winter of 2011 when school was out. This book is theoretical, to some extent, and thought provoking. Some people question some of the data within, but you have to experience these mental illnesses to understand them but do not romanticize them as the author states.

I was a little disappointed with Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill being covered for roughly 10 pages each. There is so much information on these two statesmen that I felt they deserved more coverage. As I have seen on book reviews elsewhere, Franklin Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, GA not Hot Springs as the book mentions. And some of the information I did not personally agree with completely when discussing the mental health of current leaders.

I hope that the original author and other writers will some day expand on this information as I believe it is worth reseaching. Besides these errors, I recommend this book.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I began reading this book with high hopes. The premise is intere

I began reading this book with high hopes. The premise is interesting, but the further I got into the book, the less I enjoyed it. Ghaemi is an academic, and as such should know better than to insert himself into the narrative. He frequently pats himself on the back for his groundbreaking research into historical documents, which is terribly annoying, and unforgivably references himself throughout the work. Also troubling in an academic work is the lack of citations, whether in footnote or endnote form, throughout the text. There are endnotes, and they are occasionally referenced in the narrative, but actual in text citations are lacking. The biggest problem is his blatant insertion of his opinions throughout the book. The fact that he has no reservations about putting his political beliefs in this book is bad enough, but many times his does this with a very loose grasp of historical material. He also fails to offer a reasonable amount of diversity in the leaders he evaluates. Comparing Sherman to Grant to Lincoln isn't exactly a diverse representation of American leadership during the Civil War. Extolling the virtues of FDR and JFK, while lambasting George Bush and Tony Blair, also fails to create a diverse picture of Western leadership in the 20th century. The links to Hitler and JFK are somewhat strange, and the parallel of Bush and Blair to Nazi officers is just ridiculous. The evaluations of Gandhi and MLK Jr. are speculative at best, and the amount of conjecture is insulting. Overall it seems that Ghaemi is championing the idea of bipolar leaders, but a cohesive thesis is somewhat lost by the end of the book. In the end, the book starts with an interesting hypothesis, but rambles on with nonsensical support and excessive conjecture that leaves the reader wishing for more hard facts than opinion.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not much substance..

I thought the premise of this book was a stretch and not well supported. There were some interesting historical tid-bits but nothing I hadn't read before.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

overdone

This is not a treatise on the relationship between madness and leadership. This book is a never ending justification for proving the point. I am disappointed that a Psychiatrist in Academia could be so sloppy in diagnosing mental illness in historical figures. Often his evidence is only the mental health history of relatives. There is really very little redeeming value in this book. While I realize that just because you are a well educated person does not mean you can write well, there is no excuse why the editors did not correct this. One very disappointing comparison is that of Hitler/Kennedy. His profuse apology prior to the section on Hitler is trite. Mental Illness in any form may have some benefits but this in no way outweighs the toll it takes on the individual. Finally, his frequent mention of how he is the first to read medical reports and points out the omission in other works is egotistical(to diagnose the author myself).

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

interesting

I hope this turns out to be as good as it looks.

1 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

I really wanted to love this book, and I do have to give it a f

I really wanted to love this book, and I do have to give it a few positive mentions. I did learn some interesting historical facts and I think he had good points in the last chapter on stigma, but with that said on to the negatives. First of all, he makes several inaccurate statements, at one time he says that personality has three aspects when in truth most psychologists and scientists now agree that it has five. Also, on page 197 I believe it was he has a paragraph about how narcissism is not real or scientifically validated when in reality it is in the DSM-IV-TR as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. If he disagrees with the disorder and makes an argument for why he doesn't think it exists that is one thing, but just stating that it is not real or scientifically validated and not backing up your argument is a no-no for me.

Also, I thought he did some leaping for the diagnosis of a few of the historical characters. While it is true that having family members with mental illness can mean you are at a higher risk for developing a mental disorder just because someone has a relative with a mental disorder and maybe mentioned feeling depressed a time or two does not in my opinion justify a leap to a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, for example. I really did want to like the book, but there were just too many leaps and holes in it for me.

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