by Malcolm Gladwell.
I have been aware of the books by Malcolm Gladwell for quite some time, mainly due to their unusual titles – “Talking to Strangers”; “Blink”, “What the Dog Saw”; “Outliers”, “David and Goliath”, and “Tipping Point.” Recently, in reading “Humankind” by Rutger Bregman, in which the author referenced “Tipping Point” several times, I finally found the motivation to read Gladwell’s first published book. The subtitle of the book is “How little things can make a big difference”. The author himself characterizes it as an intellectual adventure theory, drawing from psychology, sociology and epidemiology. He began by examining the epidemic of syphilis in the city of Baltimore in the mid-1990’s, the drop of crimes in New York City in the 1990’s, and the sudden turnaround of sales of Hush Puppies shoes in 1994. He arrived at the three rules of epidemics: The Rule of the few; the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. The bulk of the book is concerned with how the three rules were involved in a host of epidemic-like phenomena in human endeavors, starting with why Paul Revere was so successful in spreading the message “the British are coming” in his midnight ride on April 18, 1775, while nobody remembered that another person named William Dawes did the same thing with hardly any effect. Indeed, hardly anybody had heard of William Dawes, perhaps not until Gladwell mentioned him in the book. Detailed explanations are given on why Sesame Street and Blue Clues were phenomenally successful children’s TV programs, although at times it was not easy to follow the explanations unless you are also watching some videos of these programs. It should be pointed out that the broken-window theory cited as the tipping point for the drop in New York City crimes has later been called into question. This reader certainly learns many things about human psychology: connectors and mavens; why telephone numbers are 7 digits; the rule of 150; parents give children their genes, but the development of personalities and characters are mainly influenced by the children’s peers, etc. There is a fascinating account of what induces teen smoking and what makes it stick, and a suggestion of the best strategy to reduce it. There is even a test to see how good you are as a connector. Gladwell hopes the book will help people who wish to start a benign epidemic. In the fields of business, public health, and law enforcement, it is not difficult to think of the need and the benefits of creating man-made epidemics. It is less obvious in academic communities, but if you are a college professor, wouldn’t it be nice to induce a pandemic for the elective course you are teaching? For a college dean, a pandemic for high school students seeking admissions to your college will certainly be worthwhile.
Illustration of Paul Revere’s Ride (Source: Wikipedia)
(Source: Wikipedia)
Link of review in amazon.com.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R3IOI0X7Q9GBHA/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
Review by Kai Fong Lee.
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