I love knowing the differences between Sesame Street and Blue's Clues and the differences between an adult's and a child's cognitive capabilities. It is Gladwell's loose structure that allows him to connect these disparate dots in a story that you can digest, and despite the accusations that he is not precise about his overall thesis, the individual incidents are very well explained. So what if the overarching idea of the book is loose? You have now understood countless fascinating anecdotes which you can reconstruct in your own way. I almost want to say "who cares?" This book and "Blink" are veritable digests of the latest advances in psychology and sociology. Hopefully the reader who isn't convinced entirely can go into further detail by reading Gladwell's sources which are exhaustively referenced in the back of the book.Īnother criticism is that Gladwell doesn't come to a specific point or that his points are hazy (this was probably more true with "Blink"). By going into too much detail, he would lose his audience. Gladwell is a storyteller and he knows how to keep the reader involved. There's a word for the books that accomplish that: BORING. Sure, Gladwell could have dotted every i and crossed every t and shown every counter-example to the theories he's proposing. I think those readers are approaching this book the wrong the way when they critisize Gladwell for his inability to prove his points thoroughly. This book is fascinating and I was disappointed to read that many other readers didn't think so.
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