The tech disruptor. The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist.

The monstrous artist. You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate.

Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Floridian rocket launches of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Helen Lewis unravels a word that we all use — without really questioning what it means — and asks if the modern idea of genius is distorting our view of the world.