The Tipping Point Review

Fifty pages into the book and Malcom Gladwell had already become my favorite contemporary writer. His faultless writing style is always engaging, and the his constant examples sustain his arguments well. I aspire to convey myself in such a magnetic and immaculate fashion. The book on the other hand was not without its flaws.

On the whole, what I drew from the book was entertainment more than anything else. The Tipping Point is about the different elements and people that contribute to social epidemics. Gladwell paints a picture over nearly 400 pages that inevitably lures you in. Fashion trends, television shows, and viral pandemics are all subject to similar factors which cause them to be "tipped."

Three hundred and fifty pages into the book and I was still enjoying myself but was less convinced than I had been at two hundred pages in. This work is divided into chapters that use case studies to validate Gladwell's claims that the Law of the Few, Stickiness Factor, and Powers of Context govern the "tipping" of social epidemics.

As I continued to read, I felt more and more that the book and its examples were a bit too convenient. In the Law of the Few, Gladwell imparts that there are three special persons who contribute greatly to tip the circumstances: the Connector, Maven, and Salesman. I won't go into the details, but as I read I found myself wondering, "Do I fit under any of these labels?...Do any of us fit under these labels?" Malcom Gladwell went out and found the quintissential people who worked well in his theory and spoke about them at great length. I understand that these people can exist, and that they naturally play a large social role. However, what is there to gain from this book if I'm not a Salesman or I don't know any Connectors?

It isn't until the seven page long conclusion that Gladwell finally makes his point: anybody has the power to take on the above roles and tilt the scales. They just need to keep in mind the Power of Context and Stickiness Factor. Both of which I found fairly convincing. I doubt that I will apply his Rule of 150 which states that humans are the most socially efficient in groups of 150 or less; however, all the lessons from the book are valuable and backed up by credible examples. The original conclusion tails off leaving the reader confused about the purpose of the book. The 2002 edition includes an afterword that contains examples which should have been in the original conclusion and also adequately wraps up the book's objective and motivates the reader to apply The Tipping Point to his own life.

Overall, The Tipping Point is a great read purely for its convenient yet exceedingly educational case studies. I learned how they cleaned up the New York subway system by cleaning up the graffiti. I learned why I loved Sesame Street as a child and why my friends with cable loved Blue's Clues even more. I highly recommend Gladwell's 2000 book to anyone if for nothing other than pure entertainment and lovely morsels of eclectic knowledge.