The Hypomanic Edge

The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of) Success in America

John D. Gartner

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780743243452
• eBook ISBN: 9781439107737
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Biographies
• Index: Business

Why is America so rich and powerful? The answer lies in our genes, according to psychologist John Gartner.

Hypomania, a genetically based mild form of mania, endows many of us with unusual energy, creativity, enthusiasm, and a propensity for taking risks. America has an extraordinarily high number of hypomanics—grandiose types who leap on every wacky idea that occurs to them, utterly convinced it will change the world. Market bubbles and ill-considered messianic crusades can be the downside. But there is an enormous upside in terms of spectacular entrepreneurial zeal, drive for innovation, and material success. Americans may have a lot of crazy ideas, but some of them lead to brilliant inventions.

Why is America so hypomanic? It is populated primarily by immigrants. This self-selection process is the boldest natural experiment ever conducted. Those who had the will, optimism, and daring to take the leap into the unknown have passed those traits on to their descendants.

Bringing his audacious and persuasive thesis to life, Gartner offers case histories of some famous Americans who represent this phenomenon of hypomania. These are the real stories you never learned in school about some of those men who made America: Columbus, who discovered the continent, thought he was the messiah. John Winthrop, who settled and defined it, believed Americans were God’s new chosen people. Alexander Hamilton, the indispensable founder who envisioned America’s economic future, self-destructed because of pride and impulsive behavior. Andrew Carnegie, who began America's industrial revolution, was sure that he was destined personally to speed up human evolution and bring world peace. The Mayer and Selznick families helped create the peculiarly American art form of the Hollywood film, but familial bipolar disorders led to the fall of their empires. Craig Venter decoded the human genome, yet his arrogance made him despised by most of his scientific colleagues, even as he spurred them on to make great discoveries.

While these men are extraordinary examples, Gartner argues that many Americans have inherited the genes that have made them the most successful citizens in the world.

Notes

Introduction: The Hypomanic American

¹ Michael Lewis, The New New Thing (New York: Norton, 2003), p. 180.

² Ibid., p. 103.

³ Ibid., p. 100.

⁴ Ibid., p. 124.

⁵ Joseph Nocera, “I Lost $800 Million in Eight Months. Why Am I Still Smiling?,” Fortune, March 5, 2001, p. 72.

⁶ Sylvia Simpson, Susan Folstein, Deborah Meyers, Francis McMahon, Diane Brusco, and Raymond DePaulo, “Bipolar II: The Most Common Bipolar Phenotype?,” American Journal of Psychiatry 150, vol. 6 (1993), pp. 901-903.

⁷ Frederick K. Goodwin and Kay Redfield Jamison, Manic-Depressive Illness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 23.

⁸ American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1994), p. 332.

⁹ Ibid., p. 337.

¹⁰ For a review, see Goodwin and Jamison, Manic-Depressive Illness, pp. 157-184.

¹¹ Hagop Aksikal, Marc Bourgeois, Jules Angst, Robert Post, Hans-Jurgen Moller, and Robert Hirshfield, “Re-evaluating the Prevalence of and Diagnostic Composition Within the Broad Clinical Spectrum of Bipolar Disorders,” Journal of Affective Disorders 59 (2000), pp. s5-s30; Jules Angst, “The Emerging Epidemiology of Hypomania and Bipolar II Disorder,” Journal of Affective Disorders 50 (1998), pp. 143-151.

¹² Ruth Richards and Dennis Kinney, “Mood Swings and Creativity,” Creativity Research Journal 3 (1990), pp. 202-217.

¹³ Erica Goode, “Most Ills Are a Matter of More Than One Gene,” The New York Times, June 27, 2000, p. D1; James Potash and J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr., “Searching High and Low: A Review of the Genetics of Bipolar Disorder,” Bipolar Disorders 2 (2000), pp. 8-26.

¹⁴ James Potash, Virginia Willour, Yen-Feng Chiu, Sylvia Simpson, Dean MacKinnon, Godfrey Pearlson, J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr., and Melvin McInnis, “The Familial Aggregation of Psychotic Symptoms in Bipolar Pedigree,” American Journal of Psychiatry 158 (2001), pp. 1258-1264.

¹⁵ William Coryell, Jean Endicott, Martin Keller, Nancy Andreasen, William Grove, Robert Hirschfield, and William Scheftner, “Bipolar Affective Disorder and High Achievement: A Familial Association,” Psychiatry 146, no. 8 (August 1989), pp. 983-988; M. Eisemann, “Social Class and Social Mobility in Depressed Patients,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: The Hypomanic American
• I Christopher Columbus: Messianic Entrepreneur
• II Winthrop, Williams, and Penn: Prophets Prosper in the Land of Promised Lands
• III Alexander Hamilton: Father of Our Economy
• IV Andrew Carnegie: Industrial Revolutionary
• V The Selznicks and the Mayers: A Hollywood Family
• VI Craig Venter: Playing God
• Conclusion: Hypomania’s Past and Future
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• Illustration Credits