It's hard to go far these days without bumping into someone who's exploring the subject of creativity. Whether the issue is how to get it or simply how to spot it, it seems we are obsessed with locating the wellspring of this quality. Now, former NPR foreign correspondent and self-styled "philosophical traveler and recovering malcontent" Eric Weiner has chosen to investigate a group of six historic "genius clusters" and one current one, looking for the reasons why, at certain times, those places "produced a bumper crop of brilliant minds and good ideas." Blending travel memoir with reporting on the latest scientific and historical research, THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS is a fresh, informative and entertaining take on a subject that is a source of perpetual fascination.

Weiner makes it clear at the outset that he's unimpressed with theories like those of the 19th-century British scientist Sir Francis Galton that chalk genius up to genetics, or the "10,000-Hour Rule," popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book OUTLIERS, proposing that exceptional creativity is the product of sheer hard work. Instead, his quest is informed by the research of Dean Keith Simonton, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Davis and pioneer in historiometrics, an academic discipline that applies the insights of social science to the study of "epochs that spawned beautiful art and brilliant philosophy and scientific breakthroughs."

Capable journalist that he is, Weiner embarks on a globe-spanning journey that takes him to Athens, Hangzhou, Florence, Edinburgh, Calcutta and Vienna, where he sifts through the historical record for clues to what made those cities so exceptional in the ages in which they thrived, and, sadly in most cases, contrasting those epochs with current-day reality. Weiner concludes his odyssey in Silicon Valley, "the ultimate manifestation of the American flavor of genius."

"Blending travel memoir with reporting on the latest scientific and historical research, THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS is a fresh, informative and entertaining take on a subject that is a source of perpetual fascination."

For all of Weiner's deference to Simonton's insights, THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS is refreshing for the lack of dogmatism in its approach to the subject of creativity. As he  patiently explains, it would be implausible to expect that there is any one-size-fits-all explanation for the remarkable intellectual achievements of Athens in the Age of Pericles, the art of Renaissance Florence's Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, or the sublime music of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn in late-18th- and early-19th-century Vienna.

So whether it's the mingling of diverse cultures in ancient Athens ("nothing kills creativity faster than a wall," Weiner notes of rival Sparta, an observation that seems pertinent to our current immigration debate), the presence of English political dominance that was a common characteristic of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century and India's Bengal Renaissance that spanned the period from about 1840 to 1920, or the coffeehouses of Sigmund Freud-era Vienna that served as "a secular cathedral, an idea incubator, an intellectual crossroads," there seems to be myriad conditions that provide the fertile soil in which genius can take root and grow.

In one of the highlights of each of his city visits, Weiner connects with an interlocutor --- typically a journalist or other writer --- with broad knowledge of the city's history and culture. In Athens (where one of Weiner's tour guides happens to be named Aristotle), that discussion takes the form of a conversation with a philosopher named Nikos Dimou, who admits that he doesn't read Plato and doesn't like him. When Weiner asks him how it feels to be a 21st-century Greek philosopher, Dimou replies, "Hungry. It feels very hungry." In Hangzhou, Weiner scores a meeting with multibillionaire Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, who startlingly attributes the lack of innovation in modern China to the country's abandonment of traditional religious practices like Taoism.

The chapter on Silicon Valley that concludes the book is the weakest, perhaps because its story of technological innovation is so well-known or perhaps because Weiner himself seems ambivalent about draping this region with the mantle of genius. Even he recognizes that the high-tech culture that flourishes there, "if it is to survive, needs to find alternative energy sources, new ways of being creative and not simply new creative products."

Weiner's voice is breezy but well-informed, reminiscent of works like Steven Johnson's HOW WE GOT TO NOW. He's so consistently engaging and self-deprecating that he can be forgiven his occasional lapses into cuteness, as when he calls Emperor Joseph II "the Michael Bloomberg of the Austro-Hungarian Empire" or describes Andrea del Verrochio, whose workshops served as incubators for scores of Florentine artists, including Leonardo, as "the Lou Reed of the Renaissance."

Summing up his stimulating journey, Weiner identifies what he calls the "Three Ds" --- disorder, diversity and discernment --- that are the common attributes of all exceptionally creative places. It's not necessary to agree with that, or any other of the many challenging insights of his book, to come away from it with a renewed appreciation for the glory of human genius and the places that have nurtured it.