Revenge of the Tipping Point

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

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This was the first book I've read by Malcolm Gladwell and I found it a bit disappointing; however, his reputation is so impressive I may have set my expectations too high. He certainly makes some interesting points. For example super-spreaders are a major cause of the spread of virus. Vocal chords, and by extension, normal speaking creates far more airborne particles than does sneezing or coughing. This was interesting but not the sort of thing over which to perform cartwheels.

He went on to explain the importance of what he calls the over-story. It consists of the set of axioms taken for granted by most members of society. Simply put, these are what 'everybody knows'. They may differ from culture to culture and place to place but they define to a large extent a society or subsection of a society. Interestingly enough, he hypotheses an over-story can be changed by very little if it provides just the right nudge. Here I think his analysis, while accurate as far as it went, did not go far enough. In the examples he gave regarding gay marriage, I suspect there was a lot of work performed in the background before the apparently sudden change in attitudes occurred.

I found his numbers interesting. Based on research he quotes, a population shift of 1/4 to 1/3 results in a sudden and rather dramatic change in the thinking of a culture. The exact number appeared to differ depending on the study but 1/3 seems to be the upper bound.

Outside of these things I felt the book was a little weak. His point seems to be the tipping-point where change occurs is quantifiable and almost instantaneous. He didn't completely make his case for me but I found it interesting nonetheless.



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