Review of 'Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
It was fine but also a bit boringly written.
352 pages
English language
Published Feb. 22, 2019
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
4 stars
(2 reviews)
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World is a 2019 book by David Epstein in which he expands on the points from his previous book The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance to make a more general argument against overspecialization. In the book, he argues that range – defined as more diverse experience across multiple fields – is more relevant in today's society than specialization because the wicked problems of the modern world require bridging experience and knowledge from multiple fields to foster solutions.
Review of 'Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Quite brilliant in that it takes what most consider self-evident: early specialization and focused training is what builds world-beating athletes and professionals, and turns it on its head. Epstein writes that for every story of a Tiger Woods, earliest and continued focus on a particular sport, profession, or pasttime, there is another story that shows the opposite, namely early and ongoing experimentation. Roger Federer and the 2014 Germany world cup team are two useful examples. Early and exclusive specialization are seen as detrimental when dealing with novel situations in "wicked" domains that do not maintain the same rules (unlike chess and golf, many or most situations in emerging industries or medical research need different skills to draw on). The power of analogies is brought to the fore. For those who are switching careers, know that this is very common and studies on countries which require early college specialization (such as …
Quite brilliant in that it takes what most consider self-evident: early specialization and focused training is what builds world-beating athletes and professionals, and turns it on its head. Epstein writes that for every story of a Tiger Woods, earliest and continued focus on a particular sport, profession, or pasttime, there is another story that shows the opposite, namely early and ongoing experimentation. Roger Federer and the 2014 Germany world cup team are two useful examples. Early and exclusive specialization are seen as detrimental when dealing with novel situations in "wicked" domains that do not maintain the same rules (unlike chess and golf, many or most situations in emerging industries or medical research need different skills to draw on). The power of analogies is brought to the fore. For those who are switching careers, know that this is very common and studies on countries which require early college specialization (such as Britain) vs. those that encourage or require a breadth of experience (such as Scotland) show that breadth outweighs depth in terms of an economic strategy. This applies as much to education, as athletics, as music and other arts. Van Gogh is another striking example of massive exploration and experimentation which led to tremendous breakthrough. Charles Darwin's chaotic and diverse interests before the post-college gap year on the Beagle is another fascinating and thunderous example. Bill Gates enjoyed this book and it is in his Gates' Notes book list. One can hear a somewhat discordant note though, as he doesn't advise people who are interested in a specialization to not "go for it" say in microbiology, but he nevertheless attributes early and ongoing success at Microsoft on having a range of expertise and he says that those who thought the broadest also thought the deepest and were the most interesting and engaging.