Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the age of the genius
The perils of bowing to those anointed as special
Books about geniuses tend to fall into predictable categories. There is hagiography, along the lines of “How Picasso revolutionised art”. There are takedowns (“Picasso was a monster”). And there are how-to manuals (“How you can become the new Picasso”). “The Genius Myth” by Helen Lewis is more original and painfully timely. This is the high age of the genius, readers may conclude—but not in a good way.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The age of the genius”
Culture
June 21st 2025- How to think about the manosphere
- The year’s chicest shade is good enough to eat
- Was Zbigniew Brzezinski America’s most important foreign-policy guru?
- The Laurel Canyon sound has reverberated down the decades
- The right to privacy has been hard-earned. It is imperilled again
- Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the age of the genius
From the June 21st 2025 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
What Superman tells you about American foreign policy
Should a man who can do anything choose to do nothing?
Handling feelings with rubber gloves: the odd life of Muriel Spark
An abandoned son, scorned lovers and dazzling, manipulative prose
Why the left gains nothing from pop stars’ support
Artists are entitled to share their views. Doing so is not always noble or wise
What to watch this weekend
Stories of tennis players, chefs and rock stars
Stop crying your heart out—for Oasis have returned to the stage
They are much more popular today than their Britpop peers
Inside the uneasy, incongruous coalition of the Big Three
A new book traces the wartime relationship between Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin