The value of creativity: an essay in intellectual history, from Genesis to Nietzsche

In the middle of the 19th century a new value began to appear in Western Europe - the belief that (in the words of Matthew Arnold) 'the exercise of a creative activity is the true function of man'.

This book gives an account of the stages by which, and the reasons why, this development occurred at that time.

In so doing it reveals a historical puzzle, for the main factors which can be seen to have given rise to the new value - mainly scientific, technological, economic and political - were not reflected in the value itself, for that was applied almost exclusively to artistic and cultural activity.