Anders Ericsson

Robert Pool

“This book is a breakthrough, a lyrical, powerful, science-based narrative that actually shows us how to get better (much better) at the things we care about.”—Seth Godin, author of Linchpin “Anyone who wants to get better at anything should read [Peak]. Rest assured that the book is not mere theory. Ericsson’s research focuses on the real world, and he explains in detail, with examples, how all of us can apply the principles of great performance in our work or in any other part of our lives.”—Fortune Anders Ericsson has made a career studying chess champions, violin virtuosos, star athletes, and memory mavens. Peak distills three decades of myth-shattering research into a powerful learning strategy that is fundamentally different from the way people traditionally think about acquiring new abilities. Whether you want to stand out at work, improve your athletic or musical performance, or help your child achieve academic goals, Ericsson’s revolutionary methods will show you how to improve at almost any skill that matters to you. “The science of excellence can be divided into two eras: before Ericsson and after Ericsson. His groundbreaking work, captured in this brilliantly useful book, provides us with a blueprint for achieving the most important and life-changing work possible: to become a little bit better each day.”—Dan Coyle, author of The Talent Code “Ericsson’s research has revolutionized how we think about human achievement. If everyone would take the lessons of this book to heart, it could truly change the world.”—Joshua Foer, author of Moonwalking with Einstein

Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Peak

A survey of the psychology of expertise, providing techniques for developing mastery of any skill, drawn from the authors' extensive, pathfinding research

Vajon a velünk született adottságaink döntik el, miben lehetünk tehetségesek? Valóban 10 ezer órát kell gyakorolnunk ahhoz, hogy szakértővé váljunk valamiben? Hogyan segíthetjük hozzá a gyerekeinket, hogy csúcsteljesítményt érjenek el? Anders Ericsson egész pályafutása során sakkbajnokokat, hegedűvirtuózokat, élsportolókat és memóriaművészeket tanulmányozott. A Csúcsteljesítményben három évtized mítoszromboló kutatásait egyesíti hatékony tanulási stratégiává, amely alapvetően különbözik mindattól, amit hagyományosan gondolunk az új képességek megszerzéséről. Akár a munkahelyünkön szeretnénk kitűnni, akár sportolói vagy zenészi teljesítményünkön javítanánk, akár gyermekünk tanulmányi előmenetelében kívánunk segítséget nyújtani, Ericsson forradalmian új módszerei megmutatják, hogyan fejlődhetünk szinte bármilyen, számunkra fontos készség terén.

Csúcsteljesítmény

The author of Eve's Rib takes a close up look at scientific efforts to understand and control human obesity, examining the pharmaceutical and weight control programs available, the history of obesity research, and the science of body weight, and arguing that the real problem with obesity is not losing the weight, but keeping it off.

Fighting the Obesity Epidemic

We have long recognized technology as a driving force behind much historical and cultural change. The invention of the printing press initiated the Reformation. The development of the compass ushered in the Age of Exploration and the discovery of the New World. The cotton gin created the conditions that led to the Civil War. Now, in Beyond Engineering, science writer Robert Pool turns the question around to examine how society shapes technology. Drawing on such disparate fields as history, economics, risk analysis, management science, sociology, and psychology, Pool illuminates the complex, often fascinating interplay between machines and society, in a book that will revolutionize how we think about technology. We tend to think that reason guides technological development, that engineering expertise alone determines the final form an invention takes. But if you look closely enough at the history of any invention, says Pool, you will find that factors unrelated to engineering seem to have an almost equal impact. In his wide-ranging volume, he traces developments in nuclear energy, automobiles, light bulbs, commercial electricity, and personal computers, to reveal that the ultimate shape of a technology often has as much to do with outside and unforeseen forces. For instance, Pool explores the reasons why steam-powered cars lost out to internal combustion engines. He shows that the Stanley Steamer was in many ways superior to the Model T--it set a land speed record in 1906 of more than 127 miles per hour, it had no transmission (and no transmission headaches), and it was simpler (one Stanley engine had only twenty-two moving parts) and quieter than a gas engine--but the steamers were killed off by factors that had little or nothing to do with their engineering merits, including the Stanley twins' lack of business acumen and an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. Pool illuminates other aspects of technology as well. He traces how seemingly minor decisions made early along the path of development can have profound consequences further down the road, and perhaps most important, he argues that with the increasing complexity of our technological advances--from nuclear reactors to genetic engineering--the number of things that can go wrong multiplies, making it increasingly difficult to engineer risk out of the equation. Citing such catastrophes as Bhopal, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez, the Challenger, and Chernobyl, he argues that is it time to rethink our approach to technology. The days are gone when machines were solely a product of larger-than-life inventors and hard-working engineers. Increasingly, technology will be a joint effort, with its design shaped not only by engineers and executives but also psychologists, political scientists, management theorists, risk specialists, regulators and courts, and the general public. Whether discussing bovine growth hormone, molten-salt reactors, or baboon-to-human transplants, Beyond Engineering is an engaging look at modern technology and an illuminating account of how technology and the modern world shape each other.

How Society Shapes Technology

Beyond Engineering

The etiology of the Wimbum people in the Western Grassfields of Cameroon is described through an examination of the way in which the meanings of key concepts, used to interpret and explain illness and other forms of misfortune, are continually being produced and reproduced in the praxis of everyday communication. During the course of numerous dialogues, witchcraft, a highly ambivalent force, gradually emerges as the prime mover. As destructive cannibals or respectable elders the witches are the ultimate cause of all significant illness, misfortune and death, and as diviners they are also the ultimate judges who apportion moral responsibility. Even the ancestors and the traditional gods turn out to be fronts behind which the witches hide their activities.The study is on three levels: a medical anthropological exploration of explanations of illness and misfortune; a detailed ethnography of traditional African cosmology and witchcraft; and an examination of recent theoretical issues in anthropology such as the nature of ethnographic fieldwork and the possibility of dialogical or postmodern ethnography.

Conversations in a Cameroon Village

Dialogue and the Interpretation of Illness

Karl Anders Ericsson

Mozart gilt als der Prototyp des Wunderkindes, als der »geborene« Musiker – ein Ausnahmetalent. Ebenso Albert Einstein als Physiker und Lionel Messi als Fußballer. Der Psychologe K. Anders Ericsson hält Talent dagegen für überschätzt. Und bei genauerem Hinsehen wird deutlich: Mozart, Einstein und Messi haben sich ihre Virtuosität hart erarbeitet. Herausragende Leistungen sind nicht angeboren. Ericssons Aufsehen erregende Studien zeigen: Jeder kann Weltklasse sein, wenn er bereit ist, die Grenzen seiner Fähigkeiten beharrlich auszuweiten und bewusst zu lernen. K. Anders Ericsson ist der Begründer des bewussten Lernens, und dieses Buch ist die Summe seiner wissenschaftlichen Arbeit für ein breites Publikum.

Robert Pool

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