our history books spin tales that attribute world-changing breakthroughs to individual men, thinking great thoughts on their own. Yet a parallel narrative has existed in front of us all along—a kind of secret history of thinking outside the brain. Scientists, artists, authors; leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs: they’ve all used the world as raw material for their trains of thought. This book aims to exhume that hidden saga, reclaiming its rightful place in any full accounting of how the human race has achieved its remarkable feats of intellect and creativity.
