Borderline Genius / Borderline Insane: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder and How Female Borderlines Have Shaped History

Edward Dutton’s Borderline Genius / Borderline Insane makes the case that women with Borderline Personality Disorder, an overwhelmingly female, Dark Triad condition, have exercised immense and largely unacknowledged influence across Western history. Dutton develops an evolutionary account of borderline traits, arguing that the very characteristics that can make the borderline personality self-destructive can, under the right circumstances, also produce genius. History has been shaped not merely by extraordinary men with unusual personalities, but also by psychologically unusual women whose influence has been indirect and therefore difficult to see. These women repeatedly emerge as female outliers who wield soft power through intense creativity, intoxicating sexuality, and the ability to entrance high status men. The book also has a practical purpose.