Amazon.com Review:
Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and
the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative
question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably
productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their
potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man,"
he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere,
propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries
of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies
that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others
cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he
builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of
advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain
lucky."
Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro
hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to
master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers
became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts
their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian
kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these
examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin
color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites
conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He
leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could
benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their
remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm
From Publishers Weekly:
In Outliers, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) once again proves
masterful in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates
secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an
intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing his
lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display. Outliers begins with a
provocative look at why certain five-year-old boys enjoy an advantage in ice
hockey, and how these advantages accumulate over time. We learn what Bill
Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common: along with talent and ambition,
each enjoyed an unusual opportunity to intensively cultivate a skill that
allowed them to rise above their peers. A detailed investigation of the
unique culture and skills of Eastern European Jewish immigrants persuasively
explains their rise in 20th-century New York, first in the garment trade and
then in the legal profession. Through case studies ranging from Canadian
junior hockey champions to the robber barons of the Gilded Age, from Asian
math whizzes to software entrepreneurs to the rise of his own family in
Jamaica, Gladwell tears down the myth of individual merit to explore how
culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck account for success—and how
historical legacies can hold others back despite ample individual gifts. Even
as we know how many of these stories end, Gladwell restores the suspense and
serendipity to these narratives that make them fresh and surprising.One
hazard of this genre is glibness. In seeking to understand why Asian children
score higher on math tests, Gladwell explores the persistence and painstaking
labor required to cultivate rice as it has been done in East Asia for
thousands of years; though fascinating in its details, the study does not
prove that a rice-growing heritage explains math prowess, as Gladwell
asserts. Another pitfall is the urge to state the obvious: No one, Gladwell
concludes in a chapter comparing a high-IQ failure named Chris Langan with
the brilliantly successful J. Robert Oppenheimer, not rock stars, not
professional athletes, not software billionaires and not even geniuses—ever
makes it alone. But who in this day and age believes that a high intelligence
quotient in itself promises success? In structuring his book against that
assumption, Gladwell has set up a decidedly flimsy straw man. In the end it
is the seemingly airtight nature of Gladwell's arguments that works against
him. His conclusions are built almost exclusively on the findings of
others—sociologists, psychologists, economists, historians—yet he rarely
delves into the methodology behind those studies. And he is free to
cherry-pick those cases that best illustrate his points; one is always left
wondering about the data he evaluated and rejected because it did not support
his argument, or perhaps contradicted it altogether. Real life is seldom as
neat as it appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book.
