Smart

Sarah Bakewell chronicles the radical 18th century poet Christopher Smart, who was institutionalized for religious mania yet created some of the era's most innovative verse. She traces his journey from promising young writer to asylum patient, examining the thin line between devotion and madness in Georgian England. The narrative reveals Smart's relationships with Samuel Johnson, his publisher John Newbery, and other key literary figures of London's coffee house culture. Through Smart's story, Bakewell reconstructs the intellectual and social world of 1750s Britain, where rationalism clashed with religious fervor and new ideas about mental illness began to emerge. Smart's incarceration led to his composition of Jubilate Agno, a wildly experimental poem celebrating God's creation - including his famous passages about his cat Jeoffry. His transformation from conventional poet to visionary artist raises questions about creativity, faith, and the nature of genius in ways that resonate with modern perspectives on mental health and artistic expression. The book invites reflection on how societies define and respond to neurodiversity, and what constitutes "madness" in any given era. Through Smart's experiences, Bakewell illuminates the complex relationships between religious devotion, mental states, and artistic innovation.

Readers appreciated Bakewell's storytelling and research into the science of intelligence and knowledge - according to Amazon reviews, she "makes complex ideas accessible without oversimplifying." Many noted her engaging personal anecdotes and historical examples. Common praise focused on the balanced examination of both biological and cultural factors in intelligence, with several reviewers highlighting the book's exploration of AI alongside human cognition. Main criticisms centered on the book's structure, with some readers finding the narrative meandering. A few Goodreads reviews noted repetitive sections and wished for more concrete conclusions. Ratings across platforms: Goodreads: 4.0/5 (1,200+ ratings) Amazon: 4.4/5 (150+ ratings) LibraryThing: 4.1/5 (90+ ratings) "The author excels at making neuroscience digestible" - NYT Books review "Sometimes gets lost in tangents" - Goodreads user review "Strong on history but light on modern applications" - Amazon reviewer

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🧠 The author spent over six years researching and writing the book, diving deep into archives across multiple countries to piece together the history of 20th century behavioral science. 🔬 The book's central figure, B.F. Skinner, kept his own young daughter in a specially designed "air crib" - a climate-controlled box he invented - for the first two years of her life as part of his behavioral experiments. 📚 Sarah Bakewell previously won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her book "How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer." 🎯 The behaviorist movement, which is central to the book's narrative, began with John B. Watson's famous "Little Albert" experiment in 1920, where he conditioned a baby to fear a white rat by making loud noises. 🌟 While the book focuses on behaviorism, it also explores competing theories of mind from the same era, including Gestalt psychology and the early cognitive revolution, showing how these different approaches clashed and influenced each other.