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| | Features | ISBN13: 9780316017923Condition: NewNotes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
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| | Description | In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate. | |
| | Product Details | | Author: | Malcolm Gladwell | | Hardcover: | 309 pages | | Publisher: | Little, Brown and Company | | Publication Date: | November 18, 2008 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0316017922 | | Product Length: | 5.63 inches | | Product Width: | 1.0 inches | | Product Height: | 8.25 inches | | Product Weight: | 0.93 pounds | | Package Length: | 8.4 inches | | Package Width: | 5.7 inches | | Package Height: | 1.2 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.6 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 1286 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 1286 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
356 of 380 found the following review helpful:
 Where do you lie? Jul 14, 2009
By Bethany Jameson
The main tenet of Outliers is that there is a logic behind why some people become successful, and it has more to do with legacy and opportunity than high IQ. In his latest book, New Yorker contributor Gladwell casts his inquisitive eye on those who have risen meteorically to the top of their fields, analyzing developmental patterns and searching for a common thread. The author asserts that there is no such thing as a self-made man, that "the true origins of high achievement" lie instead in the circumstances and influences of one's upbringing, combined with excellent timing. The Beatles had Hamburg in 1960-62; Bill Gates had access to an ASR-33 Teletype in 1968. Both put in thousands of hours-Gladwell posits that 10,000 is the magic number-on their craft at a young age, resulting in an above-average head start.
Gladwell makes sure to note that to begin with, these individuals possessed once-in-a-generation talent in their fields. He simply makes the point that both encountered the kind of "right place at the right time" opportunity that allowed them to capitalize on their talent, a delineation that often separates moderate from extraordinary success. This is also why Asians excel at mathematics-their culture demands it. If other countries schooled their children as rigorously, the author argues, scores would even out.
Gladwell also looks at "demographic luck," the effect of one's birth date. He demonstrates how being born in the decades of the 1830s or 1930s proved an enormous advantage for any future entrepreneur, as both saw economic booms and demographic troughs, meaning that class sizes were small, teachers were overqualified, universities were looking to enroll and companies were looking for employees.
In short, possibility comes "from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with." This theme appears throughout the varied anecdotes, but is it groundbreaking information? At times it seems an exercise in repackaged carpe diem, especially from a mind as attuned as Gladwell's. Nonetheless, the author's lively storytelling and infectious enthusiasm make it an engaging, perhaps even inspiring, read.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is another of my favorites in this genre. I recommend it strongly because, unlike Gladwell's book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 shows you how to become an outlier...
218 of 242 found the following review helpful:
What Makes Success? A Little Blt of a Lot of Things. (A teacher's review) Mar 20, 2009
By Kevin Currie-Knight
"Education Grad Student"
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.
699 of 789 found the following review helpful:
 4 stars for fun, but 2 stars for originality Nov 21, 2008
By Nick Tasler
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
146 of 162 found the following review helpful:
A Lot Like Gladwell's Other Books Feb 12, 2009
By Succcessful Investor
Gladwell seems to have perfected a formula:
1. Latch onto a catchy concept.
2. Think of a great, catchy one- or two-word title.
3. Write a thin, small book.
4. Start your book with a decent analysis of some facts that support your catchy thesis, hook the reader, then let the book slide into a series of anecdotes and stories. Don't "prove" your thesis, just illustrate it.
5. Charge a lot for it (in both absolute dollars and cost-per-word).
6. Get a terrific, minimalist cover design.
7. Let the royalties and accolades roll in.
Each of Gladwell's three books ("Tipping Point," "Blink," and "Outliers") follows this formula. It's a proven winner, and at the end of this book, he goes into full rooting mode for another hit in his Acknowledgements: "[A colleague] and I have been two for two so far, and...here's hoping we go three for three." Wow. Let's just set up a toll-booth.
I don't agree with the five-star reviews. The book is just too thin, anecdotal, and un-analytical to be taken very seriously. On the cover flap, it says that "Tipping Point" changed the way we understand the world, "Blink" changed the way we think about thinking, and "Outliers" will transform the way we understand success. Uh, no. They are all decent books with provocative theses, but none has enough "there" there to change the way most people think about anything.
I also don't agree with the one-star reviews. Gladwell's topics are provocative, his books are easy reads (this one took me just a few hours on vacation, and I'm not that fast a reader), and the stories and anecdotes are interesting. I found myself pretty convinced that birthdates are important to hockey success (so he hooked me with the first part of the book), but each successive chapter became less fact-based and more story-based. That said, it's a nice easy read, and I learned a thing or two. His books are not worthless.
So I give it a nice easy 88-mph down the middle three stars. I must admit, I admire the success he has had with his formula. He makes it look pretty easy.
94 of 111 found the following review helpful:
 Outlandish Dec 17, 2008
By O. Buxton
"Olly Buxton"
A criticism common to both Malcolm Gladwell's previous books, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, was that while they were packed with interesting, well told, anecdotes there was no consistent underlying theme to the stories; no particular lesson to be drawn. For example, of the many anecdotes recounted about "thin slicing" some (such as an art expert's ability to instantly assess the bona fides of a statue) suggested it was a special and important skill while others (an impulsive police decision to pursue and shoot dead a innocent bystander) suggested quite the opposite. You were left with the impression that, well, there are these things called snap judgements, and sometimes they work out, and sometimes they don't.
Clearly Malcolm Gladwell has taken those reservations to heart: in Outliers he has been scrupulous to sketch out an integrated underlying thesis and then (for the most part) array his anecdotes - which, as usual, are interesting enough - in support of it.
Unfortunately for him, the theory is a lemon. Nonetheless, the flyleaf is hubristic (and unimaginative) enough to claim "This book really will change the way you think about your life". It's not done that for me, but it has changed the way I think about Malcolm Gladwell's writing. And not for the better.
Gladwell has looked at some psychological research into success and genius and has concluded that, contrary to conventional wisdom, success isn't to be explained by raw talent. The evidence suggests that genuinely exceptional performers, in whatever field - these are the titular "outliers" - can be identified by a combination of unique and unusual *opportunity* and *commitment* to achieve. It isn't talent, but graft and the odd lucky break. Hmm.
A common thread, Gladwell claims, is that most "world class experts", be they "composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, what have you ..." have put in 10,000 hours of practice before really achieving success. So, as the paradigm case goes, the Beatles weren't just in the right place at the right time (though clearly they were), but were instead preternaturally prepared for it by their grueling stint playing hundreds of eight-hour shows in Hamburg, an experience which afforded them both the necessary period of time and unusual opportunity to gain musical proficiency.
The first quibble here is to note that (even allowing for the patent fantasy that the Beatles played eight-hours non stop each night), on Gladwell's own figures, the Hamburg experience - which didn't involve Ringo Starr - still left the band roughly 8,000 hours short of their necessary 10,000. In any case attributing the Beatles' success to their (undisputed) musical proficiency indicates the degree to which Gladwell misses the point, both about rock 'n' roll (wherein neither concerted effort nor musical acumen has often had much to do with initial commercial success - just ask Elvis or the Rolling Stones) and the quality of the data itself. Gladwell's theory suffers from survivor bias: it starts with an undisputed result (the Beatles - clearly an outlier) and works back looking for evidence to support its hypothesis and takes whatever is there: easy enough to do since the "evidence" is definable only in terms of the subsequently occuring success. In less polite circles this is called revisionism.
There will, after all, be no record of the poor loser who spent 10,000 hours at his fretboard and who squandered a wealth of opportunity through ineptitude or bad luck, because, by definition, he never caught the light. Even if you grant Gladwell his theory - and I'm not inclined to - the most that can be said is that he's found a *correlation* between graft and success. But to confuse correlation with causation is a cardinal sin of interpretation (see Stephen Jay Gould's splendid The Mismeasure of Man for a compelling explanation of this fallacy) unless you have independent supporting grounds to justify the causal chain. Gladwell offers none: The Fab Four (well, Fab Three plus Pete Best) may have become a tighter band in Germany, but as Gladwell acknowledges there were many Liverpool bands in Hamburg at the time, all presumably clocking up eight hours non-stop (yeah, right) per night, and none of the others made the cover of Rolling Stone then, or has done since.
Much of the rest of Gladwell's patter is similarly glib: look at any "success story" long enough and you're bound to find something in its past you can designate as the crucial 10,000 hours. But to imply - as Gladwell seems to - that it isn't special talent but nothing more than sheer grit and unique opportunity that creates Outliers seems fatuous, and liable to needlessly encourage a class of plodders who will end up very disappointed (and resentful of M. Gladwell, Esq.) in 10 years' time. It struck me when I listened to him speak in London last month that the 10,000 hours might just as easily be confirmation, rather than falsification, of the presence of raw talent. If you take two violinists, one tone deaf and the other unusually gifted, all else being equal, who is more likely to stick at it for the ten years it takes to achieve concert level proficiency?
To be sure there are some fascinating lessons to be drawn here, but precisely at the point where Gladwell allows himself to drift off the moorings of his underlying theory: ethnic theory of plane crashes, which seemed to establish very little about outliers even on his argument, is cogent (and in these melting markets, timely) caution as to the risks of autocratic behaviour. Towards the end of the book Gladwell reaches some uneasy conclusions that, based on the extraordinary results of Asian schoolchildren in mathematics, that US schools should effectively abandon summer holidays and have children attend school all year round, like they might if they were working in a rice paddy. I'm not convinced that more school (as opposed to better parenting) is the answer.
It was my fortune to be reading Steve Gould's classic tome on scientific sceptism at the same time I read (and listened to) Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell's prescriptions are analogous with the flawed IQ testing programmes Gould so elegantly takes to task: the hypothesis comes first, and the intellectual process behind it is the search for evidence in support of it rather than a dispassionate attempt to falsify. It is hard to imagine how one would go about falsifying (or proving, other than anecdotally) Gladwell's theory and even harder to conceive what prospective use Gladwell's learning, if true, could be. Seeing as the "golden opportunities" can only be identified with hindsight - once your outlier is already lying out there, this feels like the sort of junk science with all the trappings - and utility - of 20:20 rear vision.
Olly Buxton
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