Полимат. История универсальных людей от Леонардо да Винчи до Сьюзен Сонтаг

Usually, polymaths are understood as universal people gifted in different fields. Strangely enough, these amazing individuals, endowed with almost supernatural abilities, have hardly been studied as a phenomenon. The book by the famous historian Peter Burke is a successful attempt to fill this gap. According to his definition, polymaths are not just erudite individuals with broad interests, but scholars with encyclopedic knowledge of a subject or a significant segment of it. What is their uniqueness and can they be classified? What traits—innate or acquired—contribute to polymathy? How important are the sociocultural and economic conditions in which these people live and work? How do technological progress and the information explosion affect them? Will polymaths survive as a "species" in an era of deepening specialization? Peter Burke seeks answers to these and other questions by exploring the history and "habitat" of polymaths—from Pythagoras to Jared Diamond, from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag.