Malcolm Gladwell’s life has changed; He doesn’t have that

A new book by Malcolm Gladwell is published on Tuesday. And if history is any guide, it will be a bestseller. “They’re stories about ideas,” he said. “They have characters. They have storylines. I’m usually trying to say something about the world.”

His first book, “The Tipping Point,” published in 2000, established the Gladwell formula: examining a topic through anecdotes and little-known scientific studies. “’Tipping Point’ was about the epidemic as an incredibly useful way to understand how ideas move through society,” Gladwell said. “And epidemics have rules. Let’s learn the rules, shall we?”

His seven New York Times The bestsellers sold 23 million copies in North America alone. His corporate speaking fee is $350,000. His fans have downloaded a quarter of a billion episodes of his podcast, “Revisionist History,” and he founded a company called Pushkin Industries to produce it.

In other words, Gladwell has come a long way from the small Canadian town where he grew up, the son of a British father and a Jamaican mother he describes as “subversive,” someone who wrote notes to distract his son from lessons to excuse a space. “I would just fill in the date,” said the man who often skipped school.

He attended the University of Toronto, but his best education came during his ten-year stint at the Washington Post. “I didn’t know anything about newspapers,” he said. “I was so raw. I was 23, I think, or 24. Bob Woodward was two rows away from me. I learned at the feet of the greatest journalists of my generation.”

In 1996 Gladwell moved to the New Yorker. In an article called “The Tipping Point,” he wrote about why crime rates in New York fell in the 1990s. A book followed. It introduced a recurring Gladwellian theme: hidden patterns in the way the world works.

He is a world-class considerer when it comes to college (“You should never go to the best college you go to, never your second or third choice. Go to the place where you are guaranteed to be at the top.” yours Class”) about working from home (“It’s not in your interest to work at home. … If you’re just sitting in your bedroom in your pajamas, that’s the work life you want to live, right? Want “Don’t you feel like you’re part of something?”); about football (“I consider sport a moral abomination”).

Gladwell says he enjoys provoking: “Of course!” he said. “I like poking the bear. I mean, journalists.” should poke the bear.

Gladwell’s fans love his storytelling and that Aha! Moments that they bring. His critics, On the other hand, they have described his writings as “generalizations that are banal, obtuse, or outright false” and “simple, empty truths (dressed) in flowery language.” “I don’t think everyone will like my work,” Gladwell said. “100% of people don’t like anything.”

In a “Sunday Morning” interview 2021Gladwell said, “I would rather be interesting than right.” He called it “an overly provocative way of saying things! No, I think what I meant was that I’m not devastated if I’m wrong. I accept that as the price of the deal.”

Gladwell often turns his mistakes into new chapters or podcast episodes. In “The Tipping Point,” he explained that the decline in crime in New York was the result of “broken windows policing.” He described it this way: “Small crimes were tipping points for big crimes.” But that philosophy led to New York’s stop-and-frisk policy.

“Conducting 700,000 police stops annually on young black and Hispanic men is deeply problematic,” Gladwell said. “We were wrong. I was part of it. I’m sorry.”

That brings us to the new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point. “The original ‘Tipping Point’ is a very optimistic, rosy book about the possibilities of using the laws of epidemics to promote positive social change,” he said. “Over the last 25 years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the other side of this problem: What happens when people apply the laws of epidemics in malicious, harmful, or self-serving ways?”

The book’s stories range from topics as obscure as Cheetah reproductionto such big stories as the Holocaust. He writes that almost no one talked about the Holocaust or even called it that until NBC aired a miniseries called “Holocaust” in 1978. “And what changed happened like this.” (snaps his fingers). “I mean, there was just a turning point in our understanding of the Holocaust,” he said.

This book reaches a turning point in Gladwell’s own life. Within five years, he got engaged, had two children, turned 61 and moved from Manhattan to rural Hudson, New York. “It’s a lot to handle. There isn’t a single person whose parents haven’t said, ‘That’s a lot!'” he laughed. “I have become the person I once despised, and nothing makes me happier.”

He also despises Ivy League colleges, accusing them of prioritizing their own reputations over focusing on their students.

Has parenthood influenced his outlook on the things he’s written about before? “Well, it prepared me for the possibility that I’ll be a big hypocrite!” Gladwell laughed. “You know, it’s one thing to write about what you should do with your kids if you don’t have any.”

Despite his success, Malcolm Gladwell maintains that nothing has changed in his approach, work ethic and contrarianism. “It hasn’t changed what I do,” he said. “I don’t give out my research; I still do reporting trips. This isn’t outdated yet. Actually, I really regret not having time to do more.”

READ AN EXCERPT: “The Revenge of the Turning Point” by Malcolm Gladwell

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The story was produced by Wonbo Woo. Publisher: Remington Body.