Author Guide · Psychology of Expertise
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In 1993 the Swedish psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues published a study of violin students at a music academy in Berlin: the best of them had, by the age of 20, spent on average about 10,000 hours in deliberate practice, alone and working on what they could not yet do. Fifteen years later Malcolm Gladwell turned that number into the “10,000-hour rule”, and Ericsson spent much of the rest of his life explaining what it got wrong. Born in Stockholm in 1947, he worked with Herbert Simon at Carnegie Mellon, then taught at Florida State University from 1992 until his death in 2020. He wrote dozens of papers and several academic books, but only one book for general readers, Peak, written with the science writer Robert Pool. This guide covers his one key book, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 1 key books · 2016–2016 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
K. Anders Ericsson wrote one book for general readers: Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2016), with Robert Pool. His academic books include Protocol Analysis (1984, with Herbert A. Simon) and The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2006), which he co-edited. Start with Peak: it sums up some thirty years of his research on deliberate practice and is his own answer to the 10,000-hour rule.
Where to Start with K. Anders Ericsson
If you want his ideas in one book
→ Peak (2016) — deliberate practice and mental representations, for general readers.
If you want his reply to the 10,000-hour rule
→ Peak (2016) — what the violin study did and did not show.
If you want to apply it to work, teaching or sport
→ Peak (2016) — the later chapters on practice in professions and schools.
1 K. Anders Ericsson Book, in Order
Peak
Written with the science writer Robert Pool and published in 2016 (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the US, Bodley Head in the UK), the book sums up about thirty years of Ericsson’s research. It separates naive practice, which most people do, from “purposeful” and “deliberate” practice: working on one specific weakness, with feedback, just beyond what you can already do. Its central claim is that what experts build through such practice is detailed mental representations of their field, and that innate talent matters far less than people assume, except for traits such as height in sport. Examples range from Top Gun fighter pilots to a Hungarian psychologist who set out to raise his children as chess champions. It was written partly as a response to the 10,000-hour rule popularised by Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers (2008).
In What Order to Read K. Anders Ericsson
There is only one book for general readers, so start with Peak. It assumes no background in psychology and refers to the original studies where needed, including the 1993 violin study behind the 10,000-hour figure.
If you want to go further, the academic books are reference works rather than reading for pleasure. The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2006; second edition 2018) collects chapters by many researchers on expertise in fields from chess to surgery; Protocol Analysis, written with Herbert A. Simon, is about the research method of asking people to think aloud while they work.
A reading path
1. Peak: the introduction and the chapters on purposeful and deliberate practice
2. Peak: mental representations and the 10,000-hour rule
3. Peak: practice at work, in school and in everyday life
4. The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2006), for the research itself
Everything Else K. Anders Ericsson Published
Beyond the 1 key books: 6 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Academic books
1
1 book · 1984
- 1984Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Datawith Herbert A. Simon, on think-aloud methods; revised edition 1993
Edited volumes
5
5 books · 1991–2009
- 1991Toward a General Theory of Expertiseedited with Jacqui Smith
- 1996The Road to Excellenceon expert performance in the arts, sciences, sports and games
- 2003Expert Performance in Sportsedited with Janet Starkes
- 2006The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performanceco-edited with Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich and Robert R. Hoffman; second edition 2018
- 2009Development of Professional Expertiseon measuring expert performance and designing training in professions
The years · 1947–2020
Quick facts about K. Anders Ericsson
- Known for
- Ericsson is known for the theory of deliberate practice: the idea that expert performance comes mainly from long, structured practice rather than innate talent.
- 1947
- Born in Stockholm
- 1976
- PhD, Stockholm University
- 1993
- Publishes the deliberate practice study
- 2016
- Peak
- 2020
- Dies in Tallahassee, Florida
- Born
- 23 October 1947, Stockholm, Sweden
- Died
- 17 June 2020, at home in Tallahassee, Florida, aged 72
- Education
- PhD, Stockholm University (1976); postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University
- Career
- University of Colorado Boulder, then Florida State University from 1992 as Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology
- Key paper
- “The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance”, with Ralf Krampe and Clemens Tesch-Römer, Psychological Review (1993)
- Honours
- Fellow of the American Psychological Association; foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (2010)
The red mark is 2016: Peak, his only book for general readers, written with Robert Pool.
How K. Anders Ericsson Writes: From the Lab to the Reader
Ericsson was a laboratory psychologist first. With Herbert Simon he developed protocol analysis, in which people say their thoughts aloud while they solve a problem, and with Bill Chase he showed that memory for digits could be trained far beyond normal limits, with one student reaching more than 100 digits. That background shapes Peak: its claims rest on specific studies, and it explains how each one was done.
His central distinction is between kinds of practice. Doing something for years, like typing or driving, does not make you better at it; what does is practice aimed at one specific weakness, with immediate feedback, just outside your comfort zone, ideally designed by a teacher who knows the field. He argued that what this builds is mental representations: the detailed patterns that let a chess master see a position at a glance.
In Peak the research is turned into plain prose with the help of Robert Pool, and organised around stories: fighter pilots, violinists, chess players, doctors. The book is careful about its limits on physical traits in sport but firm that talent is overrated elsewhere, a position other researchers have challenged, as the FAQ below sets out.
Frequently asked questions about K. Anders Ericsson’s books
How many books has K. Anders Ericsson written?
One book for general readers, Peak (2016), with Robert Pool. He also wrote one academic book, Protocol Analysis (1984, with Herbert A. Simon), and edited or co-edited five academic volumes on expertise, listed on this page.
What are K. Anders Ericsson’s books in order?
Protocol Analysis (1984, revised 1993), Toward a General Theory of Expertise (1991), The Road to Excellence (1996), Expert Performance in Sports (2003), The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2006), Development of Professional Expertise (2009) and Peak (2016). Only Peak is written for general readers.
Where should I start with K. Anders Ericsson?
With Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2016). It sums up his research for readers without a background in psychology.
What is K. Anders Ericsson’s most famous book?
Peak (2016), written with Robert Pool. In research, his best-known work is the 1993 paper on deliberate practice in Psychological Review, written with Ralf Krampe and Clemens Tesch-Römer.
Did K. Anders Ericsson invent the 10,000-hour rule?
No. Malcolm Gladwell coined the rule in Outliers (2008), based on Ericsson’s 1993 study of violinists. Ericsson said the rule was wrong in several ways: 10,000 hours was the average the best students had reached by age 20, when they were not yet masters; the number of hours needed differs by field; and Gladwell did not separate deliberate practice from other practice.
Is the theory of deliberate practice disputed?
Yes. In 2014 Brooke Macnamara, David Hambrick and Frederick Oswald published a meta-analysis of 88 studies in Psychological Science that found deliberate practice explained about 12% of the differences in performance overall: about 26% in games, 21% in music, 18% in sports, 4% in education and less than 1% in professions. Ericsson disputed how they had defined deliberate practice, and the authors published a reply in 2016.
What is deliberate practice?
In Ericsson’s definition, practice aimed at improving one specific aspect of performance, just beyond your current ability, with immediate feedback and usually guided by a teacher or coach. He contrasted it with simply repeating an activity, which tends to stop producing improvement once it becomes automatic.
Who is Robert Pool?
A science writer who co-wrote Peak with Ericsson, turning his research into a book for general readers.
Is K. Anders Ericsson still alive?
No. He died on 17 June 2020 at his home in Tallahassee, Florida, aged 72. He had taught at Florida State University since 1992.
Footnotes
- K. Anders Ericsson — Wikipedia
- Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise — Wikipedia
- Psychology Professor Anders Ericsson dies — Florida State University, 2020
- Anders Ericsson, cognitive psychologist and expert on expertise — The Boston Globe, 2020
- Becoming an expert takes more than practice — Princeton University, 2014
- When Practice Does Make Perfect — Education Next, 2016
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“We don’t think there was anything magical about 10,000 hours.”
— K. Anders Ericsson, interview with Behavioral Scientist (2016)
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