Book contents
- The Greatest of All Time
- The Greatest of All Time
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Economics of American Greatness
- 2 The Problem of the Great All-Knowing Answer Man
- 3 The Rise and Fall of the Great Changemakers
- 4 How the Babe Became the Greatest (and the Roosevelts, Too)
- 5 The Great Counterculture Conundrum
- Conclusion
- Index
2 - The Problem of the Great All-Knowing Answer Man
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2025
- The Greatest of All Time
- The Greatest of All Time
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Economics of American Greatness
- 2 The Problem of the Great All-Knowing Answer Man
- 3 The Rise and Fall of the Great Changemakers
- 4 How the Babe Became the Greatest (and the Roosevelts, Too)
- 5 The Great Counterculture Conundrum
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
This chapter explores the American discourse surrounding three scientists/inventors: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Albert Einstein. All three are regarded as “great” in the areas of science and quantitative intelligence. Due to that, each is also elevated more broadly into wisdom curators, individuals who ought to possess great answers to questions beyond their expertise. These instances betoken Americans’ belief that greatness in one field ought to translate into some near-mystical sort of intuition in all others. In all three cases, greatness was remarkably compromised. America’s reaction and reassessment suggest something very important about the contours of great men in the United States.
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- Information
- The Greatest of All TimeA History of an American Obsession, pp. 47 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025