David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

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David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Malcolm Gladwell (Author, Narrator), Hachette Audio (Publisher)

4.4 13,653 ratings

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Audie Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2014

Explore the power of the underdog in Malcolm Gladwell's dazzling examination of success, motivation, and the role of adversity in shaping our lives, from the best-selling author of The Bomber Mafia.

Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn'thave won.

Or should he have?

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwellchallenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms - all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.

In the tradition of Gladwell's previous best-sellers - The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw - David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.

Listening Length

7 hours and 1 minute
Author

Malcolm Gladwell
Narrator

Malcolm Gladwell
Audible release date

October 1, 2013
Language

English
Publisher

Hachette Audio
ASIN

B00EKQKMG2
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	7 hours and 1 minute
Author	Malcolm Gladwell
Narrator	Malcolm Gladwell
Audible.com Release Date	October 01, 2013
Publisher	Hachette Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B00EKQKMG2
Best Sellers Rank	#2,917 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #11 in Medical Applied Psychology #20 in Social Psychology #21 in Medical Social Psychology & Interactions

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Teach1

Why We will Always need Scrappy Kids

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2023

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From a teacher perspective one can easily appreciate that children from well-managed, supportive, two-parent families are almost always model children who do their homework in a timely manner, and with a predictable high quality. However, they mostly avoid confrontations and disagreements.
This cannot be said about many 'lost' children from from our high poverty neighborhoods. They often grate their way through school and life, behave unpredictably and disagreeably, but they are often memorable. Many have a high resiliency emotional personality and overcome most of their lives' unimaginably cruel challenges to become leaders and entrepreneurs.
Malcolm Gladwell writes about "what happens when ordinary people confront giants." (p. 5). He also writes (p.25) "We have, I think, a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is. We think of things as helpful that actually aren't and think of things as unhelpful that in reality leave us stronger and wiser."
On the political subject of class sizes in our public schools, he writes "when a class gets too small, the students start acting like 'siblings in the backseat of a car'. There simply is no way for the cantankerous kids to get away from one another." (p 57). He talks about the heart-breaking challenge of Dyslexic children, and he writes " Is it possible for that 'outsiderness' to give them some kind of advantage down the line? To answer that question, it is worth thinking about the personality that characterizes innovators and entrepreneurs. (p 115.)
Finally (p. 273) he talks about the brain's processing patterns in people who are not agreeable, "And the beauty of the disagreeable is that they do not make calculations like the rest of us." and "if you are Goliath, how on earth do you defeat someone who thinks like that? You could kill him, of course. But that is simply a variant of the same approach that backfired so spectacular for the British in Northern Ireland and for the Three Strikes campaign in California. The excessive us of force creates legitimacy problems, and force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission."
Some readers might use Mr. Gladwell's Biblical reference to the David and Goliath psychology when examining the historical implications of all the wars America (Goliath) has not won since WWII.

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Priya Florence Shah

Engaging, Delightful Even, But Some Tales Don't Sit Well

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2015

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One of the reasons we love Malcolm Gladwell’s books is the way he uses the art of storytelling to contradict common assumptions about the way things work. In this aspect, his new book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, is full of well-researched, counterintuitive arguments that demonstrate patterns and connect the dots between seemingly unrelated events. In short, it does not disappoint.

As we’ve come to expect from a writer of his caliber, Gladwell grips you from the start, with the timeless story of David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine, and why the duel between them revealed the folly of our assumptions about power.

Gladwell argues that we “continue to make that error today, in ways that have consequences for everything, from how we educate our children, to how we fight crime and disorder.”

“Why,” he says, “do we automatically assume that someone who is smaller, or poorer, or less skilled is necessarily at a disadvantage?” Especially when history shows us that underdogs win more often than we think. “That’s because underdog strategies are hard,” he notes.

“To play by David’s rules, you have to be desperate,” he says. “You have to be so bad that you have no choice.” With stories from basketball to Lawrence of Arabia, he demonstrates how prestige and belonging to elite institutions (think MBAs), can actually limit our options. And how being an underdog and a misfit can give you the freedom to try things no one else has ever dreamt of.

He goes on to demonstrate, with some surprising statistics, how too small a class size and too much family wealth can, both be disadvantageous to children, and why it’s wrong to assume that being bigger, and stronger, and richer, is always in our best interest.

I found particularly fascinating the story of how the Impressionists succeeded by choosing to be the Big Fish in a Little Pond of their own creation. You’ll learn why the more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities.

So, if you did not make it through to the IITs (or Harvard, Yale or MIT), take heart. It’s better to be a Big Fish in a Very Welcoming Small Pond than a Little Fish in a Very Big and Scary Pond, says Gladwell. And going to that less competitive college might be the best thing you’ll ever do for your self-confidence and your career.

While it might seem counterintuitive to talent hunters, statistics show that hiring the best students from “mediocre” schools would be better than going after good students from the very best schools. “We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is – and the definition isn’t right,” says Gladwell. “It’s the Little Pond that maximizes your chances to do whatever you want.”

My favourite part, however, was when, using the fact that an extraordinarily high number of successful entrepreneurs (including British billionaire, Richard Branson) are dyslexic, he asks the controversial question, “Can dyslexia turn out to be a desirable difficulty?” Could it be that they succeeded, in part, because of their disorder?

When something, like your sense of sight, is taken away from you, your brain compensates by sharpening your other senses. In the same way, could dyslexics learn to compensate for their reading difficulty by becoming better listeners and learning to understand the nuances of human communication better than their peers? That does seem to be the case. As Gladwell states, “What is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily.”

But the dyslexics who succeed also seem to have a special brand of stubbornness coupled with a highly developed ability to deal with failure, and the tendency to not care a damn for the approval of others - qualities that many a successful entrepreneur shares. These are the coping strategies they developed in a world that looks down on those who cannot keep up academically, but that gave them an advantage in the world of business, where disruption is greatly valued.

Personally, I like to see these so-called disorders, that the psychiatric profession is so quick to diagnose nowadays, as “gifts” that help us see the world in ways that others can’t. I used to think it was just me (and a bunch of other people who believe in a more inclusive world) that thought this way, so Gladwell’s argument that being “differently-abled” can be turned into an advantage delights me.

I believe that we will, one day, see the same argument put to people with autism. The evidence is already there. We just need someone like Gladwell to dig it up for us.

In the vein of what doesn’t kill you make you stronger, his next chapter speaks of the acquired, uncommon courage of those who survive either an event like the bombing of London by the Germans, or of losing a parent in childhood.

It reminded me of the courage of the people of Mumbai who are known for going back to work the day after a bombing by terrorists. With so many “remote misses” to create a feeling of invincibility, no other city in India can claim such nonchalance in the face of terror.

It’s his chapter on Wyatt Walker that I find the most unsettling, where he defends Walker’s use of children in Birmingham’s civil rights marches. “Our definition of what is right is, as often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside,” states Gladwell.

Since Birmingham, child soldiers have been used by mercenaries like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone in their battle against the Goliaths they were fighting, with disastrous consequences for the children involved (if you want to understand what happened to the children drafted into the RUF, I recommend you watch the Leonardo DiCaprio starrer, Blood Diamond).

So, no, I don’t think Birmingham is really the right kind of example to make in the David vs Goliath battles, no matter how worthy the cause.

Weaving a common thread through the stories of crime in America, and the war between the Irish and Prostestants in Northern Ireland, Gladwell goes on to show how “the excessive use of force creates legitimacy problems, and force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission.”

Gladwell wraps up the book with the beautiful and heartwarming story of Andre' Trocme' and the village of Le Chambon in France that protected Jews in defiance of the Nazi invaders. As he notes so eloquently, “The powerful are not as powerful as they seem – nor the weak as weak.”

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Leisa N. Nunes

Thanks.

Reviewed in Canada on September 14, 2023

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No concerns. Book arrived in great condition.

Juan

Insightful and entertaining

Reviewed in Mexico on June 9, 2022

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I love to learn through stories. This book is literally a collection of insightful stories about underdogs battling and trumping over giants. Highly recommended

Enes Sakalli

Great Book!

Reviewed in Germany on May 16, 2023

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I recently read David and Goliath and I must say that it is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. The book is about how underdogs can win against all odds. It's full of interesting stories that keep you engaged throughout. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, has a way of telling stories that makes you feel like you're right there with him. He uses real-life examples to illustrate his points and makes it easy for the reader to understand complex concepts.

The book is divided into three parts: "The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of Advantages)," "The Theory of Desirable Difficulty," and "The Limits of Power." Each part contains several chapters that explore different aspects of the main theme.

One of the things I liked most about this book is that it challenges conventional wisdom. For example, Gladwell argues that being a big fish in a small pond is better than being a small fish in a big pond. He also argues that sometimes what we perceive as disadvantages can actually be advantages in disguise.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about how underdogs can win against all odds. It's an easy read and it's full of interesting stories that will keep you engaged from beginning to end.

David Gómez

Otra obra de arte de Malcolm Gladwell

Reviewed in Spain on May 26, 2023

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Soy un fan de todos sus libros. Y éste no podía ser una excepción.

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Vikrama D.

Spectacular, Muddled, Beautiful

Reviewed in India on June 15, 2021

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This book might divide people.
Unlike Gladwell's earlier works, this one takes tricky stories. Did MLK really use drama and connivance during civil rights movements? Did 3-strike law not work in halting criminality in California? Is rage an unjustified response to killing of your daughter? Story after story flows in masterful prose. The lessons might not be clearly laid out but those stories linger longer. Perhaps, like the last sentence of the book, this book may not stretch you - it might just thicken you. Highly recommend.

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David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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