Malcolm Gladwell has debunked the American Dream. At least, he’s tried. Gladwell, who also wrote “Blink” and “Tipping Point,” isn’t nearly as in-depth or convincing as he could be.
The thrust of the first half of “Outliers” is that people who occupy societal positions far beyond the norm achieved them less through innate talent and more by being in the right place and at the right time. Thus, no one, regardless of their talent or effort, is truly “self-made.”
Gladwell has some impressive examples to support this. He takes a list of the 75 richest people throughout history and points out that a disproportionate number of them (14) lived in the 19th century. As it turns out, all these people were born between 1831 and 1840. Age-wise, these people, such as J. P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, were perfectly poised to take advantage of the economic revolution of the 1860s and 1870s.
Unfortunately, Gladwell provides no other evidence on par with this. He is positing that this pattern occurs throughout humanity, yet applies only one worldwide example to his research. He cites a great a many studies--and has a well-annotated bibliography to boot—but none of them deal with more than 1000 people. When proposing something that affects six billion people, small numbers do not prove anything. It should be noted that the studies support his arguments admirably, though. They simply do not cover enough people to be certain whether the pattern holds throughout the world.
The second half of the book deals with cultural legacy. It attempts to explain, among other things, why the airline Air Korea had so many crashes, and why Asians are so good at math. In these chapters, Gladwell’s research is much more clear-cut, although his writing occasionally brushes past possible alternative explanations. For example, he explains how the composition of Chinese number words allows Chinese-speakers to think much more quickly about math problems. However, he neglects to address the case of Chinese who were raised in an English-speaking country and learned English simultaneously.
Gladwell’s highly personal and fast-flowing prose tends to lend weight to his arguments through sheer personality, which makes the book much more enjoyable to read. He fails to conclusively prove a great many of his postulations, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t detract from the book as much as it would seem. His intention is to “transform the way we understand success” (quote from inside flap) and fascinating anecdotes he provides do just that.
Bottom Line: Read it if you’re a sociology major or interested in the concept. An entertaining read, but be sure to not take it as cold hard fact.
Rating: 3.2/5
one problem I had with his book is it's very redundent. He repeats himself over, and over, and over again. It also feel like he "had" to publish another book. Outliers is complete rubish compared to his other books.
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