Nothing is more powerful than a community of talented
people working on related problems. Genes count for
little by comparison: being a genetic Leonardo was not
enough to compensate for having been born near Milan
instead of Florence. Today we move around more, but great
work still comes disproportionately from a few hotspots:
the Bauhaus, the Manhattan Project, the New Yorker,
Lockheed’s Skunk Works, Xerox Parc.
Edited to add: Maybe there were specific things about
Germany and Austria that caused them to have clusters of
heavy hitters, but maybe there are alternate timelines where
Great Britain or France lucked into being home to such a
cluster.
Right—my question was about what exactly those specific things were. For example, one reason Florence became a greater centre of art than Milan was that it was ruled by a family of socialite bankers (the Medici) whose power came from wealth and prestige, rather than upjumped warlords (the Sforza) who acquired it through skill at arms and dynastic marriages. Another is that Florence had much better access to the marble mines of Carrara, and so on.
Now Mozart, Bach and Beethoven all had two generations of musicians behind them, but consider, say, Haydn. He was the son of villagers who never played an instrument in their lives—yet they recognised his talent so early that at the age of six years they managed to have him apprenticed with the choirmaster. Had he been switched as an infant with a random Marseillais or Londoner boy, his chances of receiving such an early training would have probably dropped like a rock. Was that because France and England had fewer choirs and choirmasters, both to beget little Mozarts and spot little Haydns? Because violins and spinets were more expensive? Because music was considered more of a discipline for older boys, or for girls?
My guess is clustering caused by positive feedback, a.k.a, the Milanese Leonardo effect:
Edited to add: Maybe there were specific things about Germany and Austria that caused them to have clusters of heavy hitters, but maybe there are alternate timelines where Great Britain or France lucked into being home to such a cluster.
Right—my question was about what exactly those specific things were. For example, one reason Florence became a greater centre of art than Milan was that it was ruled by a family of socialite bankers (the Medici) whose power came from wealth and prestige, rather than upjumped warlords (the Sforza) who acquired it through skill at arms and dynastic marriages. Another is that Florence had much better access to the marble mines of Carrara, and so on.
Now Mozart, Bach and Beethoven all had two generations of musicians behind them, but consider, say, Haydn. He was the son of villagers who never played an instrument in their lives—yet they recognised his talent so early that at the age of six years they managed to have him apprenticed with the choirmaster. Had he been switched as an infant with a random Marseillais or Londoner boy, his chances of receiving such an early training would have probably dropped like a rock. Was that because France and England had fewer choirs and choirmasters, both to beget little Mozarts and spot little Haydns? Because violins and spinets were more expensive? Because music was considered more of a discipline for older boys, or for girls?