I felt a bit let down by the end of this as I do not think Joas was successful in articulating a coherent and actionable theory of creative action. I also found the English translation to be awkward in several places with periods put in places where a full thought was obviously not given and then no question marks when Joas was obviously posing a question.

However even though I think Joas failed in delivering his stated thesis, the book has many incredible insights and critiques that I thoroughly enjoyed and when the translation was good (which it is for 95% of it) Joas writing style is brilliant which is why the 4-star rating. It is also valuable to see what the thinking was on many topics that have now had 30 years to evolve.