This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. Brown’s two geniuses are largely forgotten today. Morphy was a chess ...

Books about geniuses tend to fall into predictable categories. There is hagiography, along the lines of “How Picasso revolutionised art”. There are takedowns (“Picasso was a monster”). And there are ...

If you close your eyes and picture an artistic genius, chances are that the portrait will be framed by a Romantic ideal that took shape 200 years ago: an artist dedicated solely to his (almost always ...

Steve Jobs used to wash his feet in the toilet, would park his car in disabled bays, and if he didn't like something, he'd shout "This is shit!" at his minions. But the "turtleneck-wearing" Apple ...