Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering

By Malcolm Gladwell

Book Overview

Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns in this New York Times bestseller that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light.

Why is Miami ... Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.

Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world's most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis.

Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell's most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It's time we took tipping points seriously.

Most Anticipated in: AARP Associated Press Time Magazine Oprah Daily Chicago Tribune Literary Hub Publishers Weekly Publishers Lunch

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316575801
• ISBN13: 9780316575805
• Release Date: October 2024
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Change Doesn't Happen Until it Does

Classic Gladwell, accessible, propulsive, and arriving at exactly the right moment. Revenge of the Tipping Point returns to the framework that made his name and deepens it, exploring how change occurs, for better and for worse, by understanding the precise threshold at which minds shift and behavior follows. Gladwell examines both the constructive and destructive applications of these dynamics, which gives the book an unusual and welcome complexity. The most compelling finding is also the most hopeful: research suggests that when somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of people shift their views, the broader culture follows, not gradually, but rapidly. From 30 percent it moves to near unanimity.

Dnf

Tiresome read. Chapters on spread of Covid & Medicare fraud were interesting, but just couldn't make it through to end.