This book has a hidden agenda
If you are prepared to challange what sort of person you are by reading, this book is for you. I think some big business people should read this book. There are many insights into famous people, that only an author like this would know about. Read it and act, doing nothing is not an option.

READ THIS BOOK!
Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice
The content of this book was no surprise to me. A first generation immigrant, my father was the founder and CEO of what became the tenth largest residential construction company in the USA. He could have jumped directly from Gartner's book. So could all his business buddies. Being born and raised in what became Silicon Valley, what Gartner says is somewhat old hat to me. It's true! Not only that, I've heard a number of psychiatrists say they known it for ages. So, what should we hope for? A good dose of hypomania? The ability to look through society and see it's pathology? The realization that being crazy (a little crazy) can be a good thing? Yes. All of the above. When I was getting my MA in counseling, my profs pointed out that business leaders can be highly intuitive, just as mystics can. Interesting. I actually was rather annoyed with Gartner for bringing out his book. My new novel, coming out in early spring, 2008, hinges on Gartner's thesis. He beat my time. But there's room in this conversation for more than one.

Creativity and Hypomania
This book discovers the link between many creative and successful people who have lived with bi polar conditions in the past with notable success.

Entertaining psycho-sociology, psycho-history
A warning about this book first; when I got it in the mail I had other work planned that evening but once I started reading I couldn't stop until the end. It's well written and entertaining but most importantly thought provoking. Rigorous science it is not and I can't comment on the historical biographies as my field is medicine, not history.

John Gartner makes a compelling case for immigrant populations being enriched in people who have bipolar traits. Given a sufficient number of them in the population, and you get places like America, Australia and Canada whose populations are almost entirely made up of immigrants. America seems to have a critical mass of bipolars which makes it even more attractive to other bipolars and, in John Gartner's view, one ends up with the positive feedback loops of energetic people making things happen at a far greater rate than anywhere else in the world. This also explains many of the down sides to America as bipolarity also has a depressive side and bipolars can be very impulsive.

Obviously this book only looks at one aspect of what makes America unique but I've found it very thought provoking. Many of John Gartner's assertions are important scientific questions that need to be answered through proper controlled studies. I had been toying with some of the same ideas over the years, but John Gartner put them all together in this book.

Excellent explanation of a confusing diagnosis - but concerned about the reviewer in VA
This is one of the only books that is devoted to this fuzzy area of psychiatry, discussing a diagnosis that is often misdiagnosed. Unfortunately it has been so by a recent reviewer who gave it one star...You've been "clinically diagnosed" wrong if you were diagnosed with hypomania - as a hypomanic I can say that your description of what you've done to yourself in your life would not be a result of hypomania. Find a new psychiatrist who will treat you properly. Best of luck.