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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
uneven research is a letdown, January 25, 2009
This review is from: Outliers: The Story of Success (Paperback)
After reading the mixed reviews & against my better judgement, I finally picked up Outliers because 2 pals, independent of each other and coincidentally teachers, suggested to me that Malcolm Galdwell's books were worth a read (one suggested Blink, the other Outliers)
The ideas Gladwell promote in Outliers such as the importance of nurture over nature, the positive results of hard work and good timing etc. are familiar and in line with my personal observations of people I've met from all walks of life in the many cities I've lived in around the world.
However, some of ideas could have been better served with more research? e.g. the rice paddy theory -- Rice is cultivated not only in East Asia, but in Southeast, South & Central Asia and the economic & academic development of the countries where rice is a staple crop vary quite a bit. Cherry-picking his data (and typos) have hurt rather than strengthened his argument. Although I'm not a teacher, Outliers reminded me of a thesis paper written in a hurry - great ideas but not very well constructed. I lost interest half way through the book (but I finished it anyway).
Outliers is worth the time spent speed-reading/flipping through in a bookstore/library (read the beginning & the end), but I don't think it's worth spending money on. I'd suggest reading books by Daniel Goleman instead. Or for a book filled with convincing anecdotes about our changing world, try The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Mixed Report, July 20, 2009
This review is from: Outliers: The Story of Success (Paperback)
To let Malcolm Gladwell take you by the hand is one of the supreme pleasures of reading. Both his enthusiasm and passion for his arguments are childlike in their intensity, and I mean that in a good way. As a result, this is a book that is gripping to read. All the issues he touches on - outlined by many other reviewers here - are important and relevant and, once they sink in, really do effect the way one looks at the world.
On the other hand, there are some who have recently accused Mr Gladwell of punditry and although I think this is unfair I have an inkling of where it might come from. For it is true to say that Gladwell has been elevated to superstar status and I think that this is overrating his importance. I had only to hear of his launch 'tour' in which tickets for a large London auditorium became quickly and fashionably sold out and my heart sank. It sank a lot further when I read a journalist's review of his 'show' describing, with no trace of ridicule, of how he looked around to observe many members of the audience scribbling into their Moleskin notebooks (of course, they weren't just ordinary notebooks). And in any case why were they taking notes about something that was going to be so clearly defined in the book they were just about to purchase and read?
And here, I think, is the problem. This stuff is absorbing - exciting even - but it is not complicated or even complex. The fact that it is so beautifully written disguises the fact that each chapter's material tends to be padded out, nurtured and repeated rather more than is strictly necessary. Thus we are treated twice to the same portion of a cockpit voice transcript at either end of a chapter on Crew Resource Management (though he mentions that crucial concept only once).
On a more personal issue I feel saddened by the unfairness and injustice, as I see it, of other books in similar vein but of equal importance and equally well written being consigned to relative neglect because their authors do not have Malcolm Gladwell's fashionableness and fame. I'm thinking particularly of 'Sway - the Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour' which, if it had been written by Malcolm Gladwell instead of Ori and Rom Brafman would have received more and, dare I say it, even better-deserved praise than Outliers. They also, as part of their own thesis, spend a chapter discussing a major airline disaster (Tenerife) but although their conclusions are similar to Gladwell's their material is more interesting, better marshalled and better thought through. And yet this superb book, published in the same year as Outliers, languishes down near the twenty-thousand mark in UK Amazon's rankings.
Finally, on a more minor point, Malcolm Gladwell deserves to be better served by his publishers. I'm sure it was their idea and not his to add the jazzy strapline ' The Story of Success' beneath the title. Given that one chapter, as we've seen, is given over to two fatal air disasters I'm not sure how this description fits unless, that is, one wanted to describe all the crews' shortcomings as contributing to the making of a successful plane crash.
After all this you might wonder why I've given this book as many as four stars. Well, as I said at the beginning, it may be a simple enough story but it's an important one for all that as well as being beautifully and eloquently told. I really adore Malcolm Gladwell's passion for his subject and his ability to convey it. For all these things he has this reader's unbridled approval.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Seeing the forest instead of the trees, January 16, 2009
This review is from: Outliers: The Story of Success (Paperback)
Life is not fair. This small, fascinating book proves that it is not really a pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps world. There are unnoticed biases and predetermined traps for the innocent everywhere. The successful have "hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies" that are doled out unfairly.
Most of us know this. But Outliers shows us the patterns to this phenomenon, the data behind the unfairness. And author Malcolm Gladwell uses compelling stories to make his case.
The prevailing wisdom on success holds that it is an individual activity available to everyone. Someone that excels either works harder or smarter or was born with more natural talent. The secret can't be something as innocuous as your birthday. But for Canadian hockey players, it is. Boys with birthdays closest to the January 1 cutoff date for picking teams are overwhelmingly chosen as the "best players," and given tremendous opportunities. This makes them truly better, not just older and more mature than their December-born playmates.
In one engrossing story after another, Outliers proves with simple, elegant logic that success occurring through individual merit is a myth. It actually depends on more than the individual. You have to look at the bigger picture, at the forest instead of the trees.
It was fun reading about Jeb Bush insisting that he is a self-made man, that he got ahead by his own individual pluck and determination. This from a man born to a United States president, brother to another, and grandson to a senator and wealthy Wall Street banker. Gladstone points out that this is "thinking that cannot be described as anything other than delusional."
I couldn't put Outliers down. It's riveting.
Here's the chapter list:
Introduction: The Roseta Mystery
Part One: Opportunity
1. The Matthew Effect
2. The 10,000-Hour Rule
3. The Trouble With Geniuses, Part 1
4. The Trouble With Geniuses, Part 2
5. The Three Lessons of Joe Flom
Part Two: Legacy
6. Harlan, Kentucky
7. The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
8. Rice Paddies and Math Tests
9. Marita's Bargain
Epilogue: A Jamaican Story
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