LIBS616

This course is a psycho historical exploration of the careers, lives, and personalities of a variety of winners and losers focusing on the impact of childhood on adult accomplishments and conflicts. The primary focus will be on the issues of adaptability, childhood experience, coping mechanisms, creativity, innovation, overcoming trauma, and personality. Among those investigated will be Eduard Benes, Otto von Bismarck, George H. W. and George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton, Charles Darwin, Humphrey Davy, Elizabeth I of England. Sigmund Freud, Adolph Hitler, John Kerry, V. I. Lenin, Thomas Masaryk, Richard Nixon, Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky. Important questions include what behaviors, personality traits, and values make for success and which for failure? Why are certain leaders, such as Richard M. Nixon, ruined by the very success they long for? Among the course requirements are intensive reading and discussion of primary sources and outstanding psycho historical studies.