Publisher’s write-up:
‘Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first
book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with a brand-new volume that reframes the
lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light.
Why is Miami…Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell
us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much
about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial
harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first
time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping
points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious
phenomena.
Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new
and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los
Angeles to meet the world’s most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a
forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the
site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and
offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID
and the opioid crisis. Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell’s most personal
book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he
offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It’s time we
took tipping points seriously.’
Revenge of the Tipping Point is a book from the author and
journalist Malcolm Gladwell, who looks back at his book written in the 90s, called
The Tipping Point. While I have not read that book, I understood from reading
this book that for any major societal changes, there is a ‘tipping point’ after
which the phenomenon is normalised and spreads across. While the previous book
explored the positive aspects of the tipping point, this book explores the ‘revenge’,
the negative consequences of the same tipping point.
The author explains through various stories, such as the health care
system in the US, college admissions, covid-19 misinformation; wherein once a
tipping point on anti-vax sentiment is reached, it is normalised in the particular
community very fast, leading to the reappearance of diseases that were
eradicated in the past. Most of the author’s examples are concentrated around
the US, many picking up from where the author had left off.
I liked the idea of the book and the book was well written and was made more
powerful by adding personal stories of people along with statistics and figures
to support the findings. Given I read it in early 2025, many of the examples
were relatable given we had just come past the Covid pandemic; something which
all of us faced regardless of where we were. Same with many apparent ‘settled
issues’ from the 90s, as progress attained, now being reopened by the right-wing
culture wars, such as the attack on transgender rights or anti-affirmative
action remarks; where even that has reached the same ‘tipping point’ making it
acceptable to voice these opinions in public.
That said, I felt the author had a single conclusion in the book, on the
tipping point and its effects. That was a point that was made to me by the time
I finished the first two chapters but anything beyond that was repetition and
to finish the book, I had to put in a lot of effort given I had lost interest
in many of the subsequent stories given the point that was made was the same;
that a tipping point was reached and it had negative consequences.
This could have been a short essay that could have been added as an addendum
in the 25th anniversary edition of the Tipping Point rather than
having a whole book and I can imagine why those who had read the previous book
were disappointed by this, because they do not learn anything beyond what had
already been expressed in the previous book. While I have not read that book, I
had read this book a book club discussion and this seemed to be a unanimous
view of those who had read the Tipping Point. Another issue was that the book
was heavily US centric and at felt, it fell into the trap of projecting what
was happening in the US as universal and applicable to the rest of the world.
To conclude, I felt it was a necessary topic to be discussed given the
current political climate with the return of the culture wars and reexamination
of what were thought to be settled issues when it comes to attaining rights and
liberties after years of activism. However, the point could have been made in a
concise manner rather than having such a detailed book. On that note, I would
award the book a rating of six on ten.
Rating – 6/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
