I would like to put Gladwell in the same category as Jared Diamond - he writes books that take you on an enjoyable sweep through different places and eras and whole swathes of pop-anthropology but, deep down, I have to wonder *why* he picked a story about dental statistics in 1930s Luxembourg, or the rate of unexplained bus crashes in Peru versus Chile. I can never quite rule out a suspicion of cherry-picking. Which is uncomfortable, because I really *want* to believe these neat stories that let you in on a little secret that underpins whole swathes of the modern world.
Let's go back to a specific example. For instance, Gladwell points out the role of culture in airliner crashes; if aircrew come from cultures that have stronger deference to social superiors, maybe a copilot would shy away from challenging a pilot who'd made a mistake. He works through examples of Korean Airlines crashes that seem to fit this paradigm, and Korea is high up the ranking of countries by deference-to-superiors, and we hear about how Korean Airlines challenged that culture and then had fewer crashes. That's a good story to read! Problem is that we never really tackle the fact that the deadliest airline crash in history involved aircrew from a country which was at the opposite end of the ranking-of-countries. No doubt individual deference to superiors was a factor in that crash too, but CRM alone is pretty boring, people enjoy reading the different-places-different-cultures stories.
I won't say it's all like this; I didn't get such a worry from the study of the backgrounds of lawyers in New York, for instance (maybe we'd see something different if somebody took on the Herculean task of expanding the study to different trades & different national backgrounds, but I don't think the main conclusion would shift much).
Frequently bought together
- +
- +
Total Price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Customer reviews
Top reviews from other countries
bobrayner
Enjoyable read but scientifically it makes me feel uneasy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 February 2020Verified Purchase
Paul Walsh
Wonderfully interesting, easy to read, amazing findings
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 September 2018Verified Purchase
GoldenHen
Over-hyped Book with a Lack of Convincing Conclusions
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 August 2014Verified Purchase
Regan Cipher
Worth a read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 March 2022Verified Purchase
Special
Malcolm Gladwell Always Seems To Get It Right
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 March 2022Verified Purchase
