2015 Book Review #31: The Tipping Point

[jethrien]

Title: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Genre: Pop science
Thingummies: 3.5

Synopsis: Gladwell kicked off his career with this exploration of how small changes can result in much larger changes under the right circumstances. It's an interesting book, full of cool stories and well-written passages. I'm not sure it's aged ideally, though. Some is probably because a lot of the stories he tells have become fairly common knowledge. But I think also his concentration on the Broken Windows theory, which has been partially discredited at this point and also has evolved into some fairly racist and damaging police procedures, kind of left a sour taste in my mouth. I suspect I would have enjoyed this much more when it first came out.

Comments

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Discredited? I'd not heard that. That there are negative social consequences to giving police wide discretionary powers, particularly w.r.t to poorer minorities, is kinda obvious, but ...

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

At least partially. The thing is, there's a bunch of stuff that happened all at the same time. The city economy recovered, the crack epidemic slowed, the police force size was drastically increased. He acknowledges all of these, and then handwaves them away because he likes his theory better.