David and Goliath is the dazzling and provocative new book from Malcolm Gladwell, no.1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw. Why do underdogs succeed so much more than we expect? How do the weak outsmart the strong? In David and Goliath Malcolm Gladwell takes us on a scintillating and surprising journey through the hidden dynamics that shape the balance of power between the small and the mighty. From the conflicts in Northern Ireland through the tactics of civil rights leaders and the problem of privilege, Gladwell demonstrates how we misunderstand the true meaning of advantage and disadvantage. When does a traumatic childhood work in someone's favour? How can a disability leave someone better off? And do you really want your child to go to the best school he or she can get into? David and Goliath draws on the stories of remarkable underdogs, history, science, psychology and on Malcolm Gladwell's unparalleled ability to make the connections others miss. It's a brilliant, illuminating book that overturns conventional thinking about power and advantage.
Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What The Dog Saw. "A global phenomenon...there is, it seems, no subject over which he cannot scatter some magic dust". (Observer).
We take cognitive shortcuts every day: we assume all kinds of things about people or situations just based on the way they look. How our brains fail us in our perceptions and value judgments is what Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath is all about. Gladwell takes us through a variety of situations, from the titular story to classroom sizes to policing tactics and everything in between, to show us how our preconceived notions, particularly of weakness or strength, often fail us.
My interest in psychology has always tended towards mental illness and treatment, but cognitive psychology is fascinating in its own right. Our brains take in so much information constantly that we simply have to derive shortcuts in order to be at all efficient in processing it. Most of the time, these shortcuts work...but not all the time. My favorite portion of the book might actually be the opening section about the title pair. Gladwell walks us through how what we think of a young man with a slingshot against an enormous armored warrior is very different than how that same scenario would have played out in its own time and context. But our brains hear "young man with slingshot" and "enormous armored warrior" and create a whole picture, and while that will usually be close enough to the truth, it won't always be. It wasn't for David.
This was my first experience with Malcolm Gladwell's books, but before I read it I burned through the first season of his podcast "Revisionist History" on recommendation from my husband (which I also recommend to all of you, it's great). This sort of thing seems like it's his wheelhouse: cognition and perception and their quirks. He's got a distinctive and enjoyable authorial voice: I could "hear" him and his cadences in my head as I was reading the words on the page, which was odd but neat. If you like reading about how you might not know what you think you know, I'd recommend this book. It's a quick, interesting, and enjoyable read!
