Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives

A fabulous piece of scholarship that brings solid science to the understanding of birth order effects.If you're a psychologist or mental health professional this is must reading. It will clear up many basicquestions regarding the behavior of the people you're working with . . .or just your siblings.

this remarkable book remains the standard for understanding how birth order affects children--forever!

Everyone on the planet, past, present, and future, has a birth order. Apparently during the first five years of human life there is an amazing unconscious development. In particular, what is my niche? Where do I fit in the whole get my share from mom and dad deal. We are all completely immursed in these seemingly mysterious unobserved effects that last our lifetime. Now some clarity! With almost unheard of assistance and cooperation of 300 universities (yes, 300, not a typo) and 2800 (same deal) professors who are expert historians, Sulloway (the humble and well credentialed Frank J) took two decades and made use of preserved communications from mostly the last five hundred years to show from the historical record the formative pressures shaping human nature and social thought. Creative individuals are a strong focus of the book, but of all the other players are illuminated as well. Guess you can't get it all into the title. As a somewhat creative person myself, it was enlightening on first and second read. Nice to know who the other players are, were, and will be. Some will come away with increased awareness of man's preference for cute little 'just so' stories about ourselves that most accounts of history are riddled with, if not founded upon. This is an indispensable resourse for readers and writers alike, many will get a vivid view of themselves in the past and future. I guarantee, no matter who you are, you'll never read or watch a biography the same way again. You, Mr. Sulloway, and I are, at minimum, rewriting history.*Note: If you are just an average person that came from a family and like most people can't figure out why things are the way they are, read this book. There's nothing like being way ahead of the game!

First of all, I'm not qualified to evaluate the statistical analysis work that Sulloway has done. I left this book with the feeling that he has uncovered a trend worth considering and identified the need to do better study on the impact of birth order and personality formation.However, I found the claims in the book too large and too dramatic. Some of the discussions were distorted out of all sense to make a situation fit his theory-- particularly historical/political examples. While some of the material feels convincing and grounded, for much of the book I had the distinct feeling of a hammer trying to label everything as a nail. It may well be that the historical non-scientific examples were chosen to spice up the book and create a larger ripple. If so, it probably worked.A number of things bothered me: Sulloway seemed to rely heavily on reported personalities of the figures involved (all historical) to identify them as rebellious. This seems to me quite prone to errors of interpretation and historical misreporting. I would have been more comfortable with actions as the standard for rebellion. I actually had a lot of trouble with how someone was adequately defining rebellion in many of the contexts that Sulloway discusses. I also had the feeling that he did a lot of picking and choosing as to which scientific revolutions he considered rebellious. Conveniently (too?) his choices fit his own hypothesis.I was also troubled that when Sulloway found an example that seemed to break his model, he tended to come up with some kind of excuse that seemed even more tenuous and difficult to prove. Primarily here we're talking about first borns who proved quite rebellious by his standards or later borns who embraced conservative movements. Generally Sulloway seemed to argue circumstances that caused these exceptions to fall into a true birth category rather than factual (i.e., a firstborn who has a lot of conflict with the father effectively becomes a kind of laterborn).Full disclosure: I'm a firstborn, so you could argue that I'm always going to resist innovation in thinking. I think that I'm going to gift this book to my younger sister who is actually a scientist, and see whether her revolutionary thought processes will make more sense of the text.

A fascinating book! Sulloway is an MIT History of Science specialist who has done a lot of research and a lot of number crunching to make his case for birth order characteristics. Although sometimes his collation of statistics was a little over my head (I have no background in statistics), I could still follow his arguments. From an historical standpoint, the book was outstanding with 1) Charles Darwin and the scientific revolution he caused and 2) scientists in general being the overarching links to many historical examples of his points: Henry VIII and his wives; the Protestant Reformation; the French Revolution; MLK Jr; Castro; US Presidents. Well worth the time it takes to read this book.

Wow. This really is THE book on birth order. This book is massivly researched and all the conclusions are fulled backed up. Take a look at the editorial reviews for yourself. It is widely acclaimed. If you have ever wondered why siblings raised in such similar ways turn out so different, than this is the book. You will find it especially enjoyable if you like scientific history and evolutionary psychology. This isn't necessarily easy reading. It is a book of research by an MIT scholar, not a silly book of theories by a bloated psychologist.

I am doing research in the area of Family Dynamics and Birth order and I find these books to be very helpful

amazing concept of the importace of birth order. A must read for shrinks

A somewhat academic view of our position in the family determining our character & behaviour . I can now spot an adult 'eldest child' at 50 paces.Fascinating.

A good read, but maybe not the easiest.I did not imagin it to be so political and historical. looking back in time. But i found something in that which made personal meaning.