How to Become Famous

How to Become Famous

by Cass R. Sunstein
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 21/05/2024

Share This eBook:

  $40.99

Fame is like lightning. Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Leonardo da Vinci, Jane Austen, Oprah Winfrey—all of them were struck. Why? What if they hadn't been?


Consider the most famous music group in history. What would the world be like if the Beatles never existed? This was the question posed by the playful, thought-provoking, 2019 film Yesterday, in which a young, completely unknown singer starts performing Beatles hits to a world that has never heard them. Would the Fab Four's songs be as phenomenally popular as they are in our own Beatle-infused world? The movie asserts that they would, but is that true? Was the success of the Beatles inevitable due to their amazing, matchless talent?


Maybe. It's hard to imagine our world without its stars, icons, and celebrities. They are part of our culture and history, seeming permanent and preordained. But as Harvard law professor (and passionate Beatles fan) Cass Sunstein shows in this startling book, that is far from the case. Focusing on both famous and forgotten (or simply overlooked) artists and luminaries in music, literature, business, science, politics, and other fields, he explores why some individuals become famous and others don't and offers a new understanding of the roles played by greatness, luck, and contingency in the achievement of fame.


Sunstein examines recent research on informational cascades, network effects, and group polarization to probe the question of how people become famous. He explores what ends up in the history books and in the literary canon and how that changes radically over time. He delves into the rich and entertaining stories of a diverse cast of famous characters, from John Keats, William Blake, and Jane Austen to Bob Dylan, Ayn Rand, and Stan Lee—as well as John, Paul, George, and Ringo.


How to Become Famous takes you on a fun, captivating, and at times profound journey that will forever change your perspective on the latest celebrity's "fifteen minutes of fame" and on what vaults some to the top—and leaves others in the dust.

ISBN:
9781647825379
9781647825379
Category:
Sociology
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
21-05-2024
Language:
English
Publisher:
Harvard Business Review Press
Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, where he is founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is the most cited law professor in the United States and probably the world. He has served as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and as a member of the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. He is the winner of the 2018 Holberg Prize. His many books include the bestseller Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler), Simpler: The Future of Government, and Republic.com. A frequent adviser to governments all over the world and a columnist for Bloomberg View, he is married to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.

This item is delivered digitally

Reviews

Be the first to review How to Become Famous.