From my review of a new biography of Robert A. Heinlein in Taki's Magazine:

The rise of the nerds to mainstream dominance is one of popular culture's most important developments over the last generation. Consider the gulf in sensibility between old Hollywood blockbusters such as Gone with the Wind and characteristic 21st-century tent poles such as Avatar, Lord of the Rings, and The Dark Knight.

A central figure in the evolution of obsessive geeks into a self-aware, self-confident community was science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988). For many of the mid-20th century's lonely youths, discovering Heinlein stories in pulp sci-fi magazines or at the public library was a you-are-not-alone moment.

Yet a massive new Heinlein biography by William H. Patterson, Jr. illustrates a paradox: Heinlein himself wasn't a nerd. Weighing in at 624 fact-crammed pages, Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume I, 1907-1948: Learning Curve (whew...) is redolent of the Aspergery culture that Heinlein helped call forth. ...

Ironically, the urbane Heinlein preached the virtues of being an all-arounder.

Read the whole thing there.