This study brings together diverse perspectives, including recent theories and discoveries, to examine the nature and origins of insightful thinking, as well as the history of theory and research on the topic and the methods used to study it. There are chapters by the leading experts in this field. Following an introduction that reviews the history and methods of the field, the second part looks at how people solve challenging puzzles whose answers cannot be obtained through ordinary means. Part 3 focuses on how people come up with ideas for new inventions, while part 4 explores the thinking of some of the most insightful people in the history of civilization. Finally, Part 5 considers metaphors such as evolution and investment as bases for understanding insight. An epilogue integrates all these approaches. Contributors to the volume include: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ronald Finke, Howard Gruber, Marcel Just, David Meyer, David Perkins, Dean Simonton and Robert Weisberg, R.E. Mayer, R.L. Dominowski, P. Dallob, C.M. Seifert, N. Davidson, A.J. Patalano, I. Yaniv, J.E. Davidson, M.L. Gick, R.S. Lockhart, S.M. Smith, M.I. Isaak, K. Sawyer, K. Dunbar, M.F. Ippolito, R.D. Tweeney, J. Sternberg and T.I. Lubart.