Great articles from the author if 'The Tipping Point'

October 02, 2009

Malcolm Gladwell is a staff wiriter for 'The New
Yorker' and is said to be one of the most influential
people. Gladwell's books and articles often deal with
the unexpected implications of research in the social
sciences and some of his observations has received
criticism from academics.
But whatever the ideology or methods be his articles
and books are very good reads.

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Reliably entertaining "pop sociology"

May 13, 2009

Malcolm Gladwell's feature articles in the New Yorker
are always good reads. That is, no matter what you
think about his thesis, you can't help but be
entertained. Gladwell is a master at weaving anecdotes
together to support his points, and the result is a
rich narrative that inexorably draws the reader in.
It's hard to precisely classify the topical niche that
Gladwell's writing occupies, but it is probably best
described as "pop sociology." Gladwell's primary
project seem sto be the unravelling of the complex
motivations behind societal behavior. He is interested
in individual decision-making and what makes certain
people "stand out from the crowd." But his focus is
not purely psychological; rather, he focuses on the
ways in which individual behavior influence and are
influenced by the beliefs and principles of the
collective. Gladwell's well-crafted articles
inevitably end up as chapters in one of his books; many
chapters from his book Blink, a study of how
individuals make decisions and what factors create a
"good" or "bad" decision, first appeared in the New
Yorker. Of late, Gladwell has been fascinated with
individual outliers in society--geniuses, underdogs,
late bloomers--and the forces that make them diverge
from the rest of the population. Although Gladwell's
work is engrossing, sometimes it seems a bit too
clever, and Gladwell himself seems a bit too smug in
his cleverness. His use of anecdotal evidence and case
studies is very persuasive. But a critical reader may
pause to wonder whether the anecdotes are quite as
convincing as proof of Gladwell's theories as he would
like us to think. Did Gladwell come up with his ideas
through his keen observation of societal interactions?
Or did he develop a thesis and then selectively search
out the anecdotes that best support it? What is
well-established, however, is that Gladwell's articles
are enjoyably provocative, no matter what you think of
his research methods.

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