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52 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What Makes Success? A Little Blt of a Lot of Things. (A teacher's review), March 20, 2009
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell seeks to disabuse us of the notion that genius and greatness are predominantly a function of innate ability and IQ. He rightly notes that while IQ is certainly a contributor, it reaches a "point of diminishing returns" after a while: once people score about 130, IQ becomes less important and "intangibles" (my term) become more important.
The book, then, focuses on what these "intangibles" are. Gladwell suggests that things like what income level, culture, and time of a child's birth are important contributors to success, as well as a person's tenacity and agility. As the last of these is the least conventional, think of it this way: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many other computer masterminds would likely not have distinguiished themselves were they born 10 years earlier (as they would not have been exposed to computers in high-school/college, and would have been in their mid-thirties by the time computers really took hold, likely already in other careers by that point in their lives.)
How does culture matter? Think about the discrepancy between how many days per year American children spend in school (180) versus Asian students (280), and how many more social expectaitons Asian students are borne into? Certianly this will affect academic and other achievement.
Now, I should point out that Gladwell is quite adept at anecdotal story telling and is much less adept at statistical analysis. As such, he could be justly accused of overstating his case (and maybe even finding patterns where he wants to see them, rather than where they exist.) Gladwell is definitely writing for the popular market so anyone wanting good "back up" of his arguments may find themselves disappointed by his cherry-picking of examples.
That said, Gladwell's book contains some interesting and provocative ideas, especially for educators and those concerned with education. His last chapter - about the KIPP schools - is a fascinating plea for American schools to infuse more rigor (and quantity) to the educational school year. As a main part of Gladwell's thesis is that how hard one works (and is willing to work) is endemic to one's likelihood of success, we set students up for failure by not expecting them to work as hard as other countries expect of their students.
For a fun read which introduces some interesting ideas, Gladwell's "Outliers" is a decent book. Those who want a little more scholarly meat may come away disappointed.
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426 of 504 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
4 stars for fun, but 2 stars for originality, November 21, 2008
Gladwell has done it again...sort of. I would have categorized this book as a 4 or 5 star read like his previous two installments--Blink and The Tipping Point, except he lost a few originality points this time around.
Gladwell's knack for making a reader say "huh, interesting..." is something for other writers to marvel at. I'm convinced that he could pen a book called "Green: It's the color of grass," and he would write it in such a way that would inspire most of us to say "huh...who knew?!?"
But in the case of Outliers the "huh..." factor has little to do with the ideas found in the book, and are almost exclusively the result of Gladwell's keen sense of how to make the ordinary and mundane sound exciting and new. This is especially true in the two chapters devoted to debunking the myth that intelligence is the key to success. Unfortunately, Dan Goleman beat him to the punch way back in 1995 with his book "Emotional Intelligence: Why it matters more than IQ." With a quick sleight of hand, Gladwell cites Robert Sternberg's label of "practical intelligence," instead of calling it emotional intelligence. But let's be honest, here, the only difference is Goleman says "tem-ay-toe," and Gladwell says "tem-ah-toe."
The other flaw is that nothing in it is terribly useful for practical application. It's no secret to anyone in the business of hiring that most selection techniques are abysmal predictors of on-the-job success. What we are left with as a takeaway from Outliers is that factors of chance like the ability to practice a skill for 10,000 hours--mostly during childhood--is the key to predicting future success. Get your kids started today...as long as you know when the next Industrial Revolution or Internet Age is going to occur. Aside from emotional intelligence (aka "practical intelligence") most of these are factors that we just can't do much about. Unfortunately, we already knew that.
Alas, however, Malcolm Gladwell is a professional writer, and not a professional researcher. If readers keep that in mind, they won't be too disappointed by the methods or originality of the research. His job is to weave together an interesting story, which is something Gladwell does exceedingly well. If all you want is some good entertainment and fodder for cocktail party discussions, Outliers might make a nice addition to your bookshelves.
Nick Tasler is the author of The Impulse Factor: Why Some of Us Play It Safe and Others Risk It All
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1,705 of 2,088 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Even a "Book", November 20, 2008
I know this is likely to be a minority position, but I think this "book" just isn't very good. I was disappointed after reading it. So even if you think that Gladwell's brand of books is the bee's knees, read this review if you want an alternative take on this particular work. Although I agree that much of people's success is due to privilege, this McDonaldized salmagundi of information is itself is an inadequate account of the thesis proffered by Gladwell. Keep in mind of course that this review is my own reasoned assessment, and that I understand that many do not share this position.
I suppose that if you were looking for a light, fluffy reading with "truthy" statements, however, then Gladwell's book will suffice. Also, if you aren't familiar with some of the main ideas or topics, then it might be a good introduction, or starting point. However, if you are expecting something a bit more substantial and you read non-fiction books regularly, then take a pass on this one.
A short summary: Gladwell's basic thesis is that, in order to be successful in life (i.e. an "outlier" beyond the norm), being lucky and being privileged matter. However, anyone looking for any self-help should go somewhere else, notwithstanding the highly misleading subtitle, "the story of success." (Unless perhaps you are a Korean airline pilot, then Gladwell might be able to help you, since there is a lengthy excursus on pilot error). Oh, also being very talented does indeed matter, but not as much as we think, and practicing a lot matters, but it is probably too late since you had to start young enough to put in 10,000 hours. There you have it.
There are a lot of problems with his "book". In general, unlike some other critical reviewers, I actually think that this "book's" premise has elements of truth to it. Actually, a lot. My main issues with this "book" are its 1) poor presentation, 2) poor citation list, 3) lack of careful consideration of counter arguments, and 4) the simple fact that there are other treatments that tell the same thesis in a much better manner.
In fact I put "book" in quotes because it doesn't read at all like a veritable book to me. Think of it more as a collated series of "musings", "anecdotes" and "wikipedia" citations, because those are a shockingly large section of the thing, whatever you wish to call it. Let me list the ways, if you are not convinced that this is a book not worth buying.
1) Poor Presentation; disorganized and disjointed. This is a short book (about 48,000 words, with 180 pages of text, according to my estimate), like the others by Gladwell, so your dollars per page are quite high. Also, the concept of outliers is mentioned in the beginning somewhat superficially, and then it is mentioned at the end, but rarely within the book itself. (An "outlier" is a statistically rare occurrence, such as being really tall or short. It is not synonymous with success, as Gladwell mistakenly implies. It can also mean extreme failure, but this is not addressed at all). Beyond being incorrect, this is a superficial treatment of the term. What is its history, in statistical theory, in the social sciences, in modern society? When did the concept of the outlier arise? Conversely, when and how did the concept of "normalcy" arrive? How does such a concept shape our thinking or understanding of the world? Instead of an interesting treatment of this general concept, the book reads like a few slightly connected but really disjointed essays on a sundry assortment of topics. It is almost as if Gladwell wandered in the social science section of Border's bookstore, picked up ten books at random, skimmed them and wrote a book review of each one. Then smack on one word "outliers", and there we have another bestseller! It consists more of concatenating wikipedia entries and other, superior works into a dime store novel, or a Mcbook. Now on to wikipedia....
2) Thin and dubious citation list. Nearly all of the graphs and tables in the book are from wikipedia! I laughed when I saw this. I know, it is a popular internet source, but to flip in the bibliography and see a morass of urls looks and seems very lazy. This isn't bad per se, but the bibliography reveals the superficiality of the full analysis. Also, many of the news sources are just online slate articles, etc., and no one topic consists more than one citation. In other words, I'm not sure if I believe much of what I read. It appears a few interviews were conducted for the book, but these are not cited or sourced, and in fact the interviews add very, very little to the book's actual content. For example, he interviews the "smartest man in the world," Chris Langan, but the interview consists of quips that appear identical to youtube clips of Langan. Gladwell also interviews Bill Gates, but the actual content mentioned in the book is treated much better in a biography of Gates that Gladwell cites. Ditto with Gladwell's discussions of the Beatles, Oppenheimer, etc. Read those biographies if you want something good, or read the Amazon book reviews, since Gladwell's treatment of them is far more superficial, covering a few pages on each topic before he breezes on to the next.
I would guess that a full 80 percent of the book's contents come from available online content (google scholar abstracts, newspapers, book reviews, wikipedia). The rest of the material really just comes from one nice book, Annette Lareau's "Unequal Childhoods," a far superior book if you want a deep look at social inequality (Unfortunately, I still can't understand why it isn't a national bestseller. I heard that Lareau's latest book has sold only about 10,000 copies). Then there are about three economics articles that are examined in detail in the first half of the book: articles looking at 1) age and educational attainment, 2) age and sports, and 3) summer school inequalities. Google scholar will provide just as much detail, or perhaps a wikipedia article on the achievement gaps in schooling.
In short, the research is superficial and it betrays a writer who isn't really willing or able to dig deep into the material to provide us with something new or informative. Sometimes these citations are very far removed. For example, Gladwell cites as if it were a first hand source an article written wholly in French and published 32 years ago, and this French article was seemingly derived entirely from another book that quoted and translated for Gladwell. It appears that Gladwell simply took the pre-made quote of the scientific study and mentioned that. It is Gladwell's lack of knowledge of any of these subjects that makes me doubtful that he really knows what he is telling us. He is a science writer with little ability to read or evaluate science. Behind the patina of words the empirical foundation is quicksand. It feels more "truthy" than "true."
3) This book does not consider ANY exceptions, and it involves almost no critical thinking on the part of the author himself. So not only is there no original contribution on the research front, there is no critical examination of the ideas and findings of others. Instead, scientific findings from a few, isolated papers are uncritically taken as gospel. This is dangerous and it constitutes bad social science. Knowledge is a SYNTHESIS of many, many studies, since statistical correlations can exist by accident, and since no one study is conclusive. I think the main reason for this is that Gladwell does not appear to be motivated by any question or curiosity. There is no careful weighing of the evidence or comparison of different viewpoints. Instead, he appears to have made his conclusion before looking at the evidence; no investigation was ever involved. There never really was an over-arching story to understand. Instead, informational tidbits are snatched randomly to support his pre-conceived ideas.
Beyond this, some of the arguments don't make very much sense. This is particularly true when considering the "cultural legacy" arguments on Asian kids and ability (spoiler alert: skip next paragraph if you want). But this is one example of many.
Somehow, Gladwell has a disquisition on rice paddies and we are supposed to conclude that this is why Asians are good at math. (Let's trot out the stereotypes, shall we?) He also claims Asians are good at math because numbers are easier to pronounce in Chinese. Huh, come again? If that's the case, then why do Asian Americans who never speak Chinese do well in school? Here Gladwell cites Richard Nesbitt's uber-broad psychological research, which itself it a little suspect. But back to rice paddies. If a "work ethic" determines Asian success, then why didn't the Industrial Revolution start in China? Why is the "rice patty work ethic" a larger determinant of mathematical ability than the "Protestant work ethic"? Each point that Gladwell makes leads to unanswered questions like this, unfolding ad infinitim. (Other quick examples. Is it REALLY true that 10,000 hours is needed for success? Why is this viewed by Gladwell as such a "hard" number? Why is success seemingly defined as making lots of money? Why is an IQ of 120 "good enough" for success, and not 100? Why do cultural legacies matter for some individuals but not for others?) For a better account of "cultural legacies" and nations read Jared Diamond's books, which brings me to the fourth point.
4) There are many books that address similar issues in a much better fashion. I.e., there's nothing in this book that hasn't been said elsewhere. My advice: go to a bookstore, look at a few of the books Gladwell cites, and then buy those books instead. Gladwell's book is more useful if you think of it as an annotated bibliography. The most direct "lift" appears to be from Colvin's book "Talent is Overated," where that author makes the similar claim that it takes 10 years to become good at something. Colvin's book is also more journalistic; he wants to find out what it takes to be extraordinarily successful. In fact these two books are so similar in spirit that I wonder if Gladwell wasn't "inspired" by Colvin's work.
But Gladwell skitters all over the social inequality literature. But there are still much better works. For example, read Johnathan Kozol's "Savage Inequalities." Read Lareau's book "Unequal Childhoods," which Gladwell himself states in the bibliography is a wonderful book. Read Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel." On the opposite of "Outliers" read Kevin O'Keefe's interesting book, "The Average American." On randomness in our lives, read "Black Swan." Or the best book on randomness, "The Drunkard's Walk." There is an impressive list of better books.
What do these other books have in common? They include a) original research (archival, history, or journalistic data), b) deeper analysis, and c) engagement of other writers on the topic. They are books! And many of them were written by experts because, hey, maybe writing a non-fiction book requires a lot of work (10,000 hours perhaps?). Gladwell, in this company is neither a social scientist, a journalist, or a deep thinker.
So what is Gladwell, and what are to make of his Mcbook? If you have to read it, check it out from the library, or beter yet, sit in the bookstore for about 20 minutes and read the intro and skim the rest. Yes, it is very skimmable. Or read the online reviews; they basically reveal the totality of this Lilliputian text. I would read the chapter on IQ, since I found Langan to be very interesting, but I've heard of him before from television. In toto, though, Gladwell's account is an odd sundry collection of musings, flitting from one unrelated topic to another, and which consists of a few factoids that, after a moment's thought, I would doubt are true. There is no underlying "thread," and the themes he addresses aren't clearly illustrated or well argued. His promise of a book on "success" remains unfulfilled as well.
In my view, Gladwell gets paid WAY too much to do what he does. If I had to characterize his vocation based on my reading of this book, I would say that he is like the Matt Drudge of book writing: he collates from a series of assorted articles (from the internet?) to which he contributes little save a flashy title page and the empty space to look at it all at once. The bold letters, the wild exclamations appear to be novel, but after reading this book you will likely feel more like one of the visitors to P.T. Barnum's museums. The sign exclaiming that an exotic "Egress" is around the corner is merely a door out, and at the end of the journey you realize that you had only yourself to blame for making mistake. Similarly, the title to Gladwell's "anecdotology" is nothing more than an empty dictionary definition slapped haphazardly on a random collection of citations and quotes from superior works. There is nothing more than that absurd title, and after reading the manuscript you might feel a little shortchanged if you were expecting something substantial.
I should say that Malcolm Gladwell is one lucky man to pull off getting this book published and sold. I suspect that marketing has a great deal to do with it. Gladwell is making millions, so why should he care? He is the quintessential post-modern anti-writer of the non-book, cobbling together pieces and ideas without the ability to edit, cohere, and critically examine the findings. The Mcbook is an outlier for sure; unfortunately, its quality is on the far left side of the curve, while it sales record is pushing much too far to the right.
Give your money to the numerous other writers producing much more substantial work. Of course that is my opinion, and as I said in the beginning, I realize that this is likely a minority position. You may very well enjoy it, and many of you probably will. But for the disappointed, don't say that you weren't warned.
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