Joshua Wolf Shenk talks with Adam Hochschild about The Powers of Two

When is the work of two people together greater than what either could do on their own? How can we find the person who will be our own creative catalyst? In POWERS OF TWO, Joshua Wolf Shenk examines hundreds of creative duos to understand and unveil the “electrified space” of a partnership.

As long as we’ve been interested in creativity, we’ve been preoccupied by the myth of the lone genius. Shenk busts this fantasy apart and draws on new scientific research to show how the pair is the embodiment of ingenuity. Shenk explains how synergy created the magic of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the hilarity of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the startup savvy of Sheryl Sandberg & Mark Zuckerberg, the financial stylings of Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger, the civil rights fire of Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the genius of scores of others in the fields of writing, music, dance, science, technology, social activism, and business. When it comes to creative success, Shenk persuasively argues that two is the magic number – and understanding why changes everything we thought we knew about creativity

Tonight, Shenk will be in conversation with writer Adam Hochschild, one of the cofounders of Mother Jones, professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and author of Half the Way Home and Bury the Chains, among other books.
Joshua Wolf Shenk is the author of Lincoln’s Melancholy, a New York Times Notable Book. A contributor to the Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Yorker, and other publications, he directs the Arts in Mind series on creativity and serves on the general council of The Moth.

7:30 PM at the Hillside Club (2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley)
Advance tickets $15 general, $10 students (ID at door), at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006; $20 at the door