Bob's Home Library
Summary:
"The best way to understand the dramatic
transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise
of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any
number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday
life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as
epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread
just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory
of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping
Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject. For example, Paul Revere was able to
galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part
because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just
about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each
of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the
man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a
"Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British.
He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The
phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've
received information in an e-mail message that had been
forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you. Gladwell develops these and other concepts
(such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population
size on information dispersal) through simple, clear
explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as
comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's
Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six
Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although
some readers may find the transitional passages between
chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's
closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering
sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most
effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It
seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or
"chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that
everybody knows--or at least knows by name. --Ron Hogan,
Amazon.com
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